A Life Less Ordinary
by Lit My Cig With Your Pain
Summary: The Doctor offers John a chance to see the universe, and John accepts. What happens when he comes back six months later than he'd planned? And what if we throw the Master in for good measure? No slash.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Sherlock and Doctor Who both belong to the BBC, not to me. The title of the fic itself and the chapters come from the song "Life Less Ordinary" by Carbon Leaf, which I do not own either but I think it's lovely.**

**A/N: This is primarily about the relationship between John and Sherlock, secondarily about the relationship between John and the Doctor, and thirdly about the relationship between the Doctor and the Master. There is no slash, only bromance.**

**I hope you enjoy it.**

**Rated K+ for a few random swear words and two mentions of drug use.**

**Prologue: You Know What I Mean**

It is beyond what the typical person might call "hot" in the desert today; a closer word might be "scorching" or possibly the phrase "burning the with heat of a thousand suns," but really, there isn't a word in English (or in any language, for that matter) that John knows would quite cover it. It is beyond Heat and progressing quickly to Supernova. (_Are supernovas hot? Is there a way to measure that? Is there heat that far out in space? _John knows he is being ridiculous, thinking about such things in the middle of a goddamn war zone, but that doesn't stop him from thinking them.)

Thinking about the heat is particularly pointless now, especially since he's lying in the sand, incapacitated and dying.

His vision blurs a little bit, so he pokes at the fresh bullet wound in his shoulder to sharpen things up. It works spectacularly. He gasps, his eyes wide open, his head tilting to the left to avoid the sun beating down directly into his retinas. God, he can practically count the sand particles as they sort of... Sparkle? Shimmer? Sprattle? _Oh, this is very bad_, John thinks vaguely. _Is sprattle even a word?_ He winces as waves of adrenaline dulled pain radiate out from his left shoulder, his strong arm, _dammit_, and dissipate somewhere in his back. _Does it even matter at this point?_ He wants to think it doesn't, just so he can give up without feeling guilty about it.

Some part of him starts to really fight then, panicking at the thought of dying, of leaving before he's ready, of going out in such a manner (bleeding out under the supernova sun, simultaneously burning and freezing as his life seeps through his fatigues and soaks into the sand, darkening it to a dull rusty clumpy brown), of leaving his friends and family behind without so much as a goodbye (he refused to say goodbye to them before he left; assured them he was just a doctor, he wouldn't be on the front lines, there was no danger, no danger, no danger, I'll see you again soon, no I won't I can't say goodbye because this isn't goodbye). He _can't _die now (though he supposes that's probably what every dying person thinks right before they kick the bucket), he's got far to much to do and be and he's fading and he can't feel the supernova sun anymore and his vision is going black and _Oh, please God let me live_.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

_Vworp._

_Wait, what?_

_Vworp. VWORP. VWORP._

It is the biggest struggle of his life, but John Hamish Watson opens his sand encrusted eyes and squints into the middle distance. He feels his mind fading, and if he lives, he thinks he might not remember this. It's almost a dream state, "that place between sleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming." There's no pain anymore, he notices that. Just a semi-pleasant floating sensation.

And something blue and large and vaguely box shaped in the distance.

John squints harder, trying desperately to focus, because if this is what near death experiences are like, they're far more interesting than he's ever been told.

There's a man walking toward him.

He's blurry at first, but as he comes closer, John can focus on him. He's tall, thin, and, bizarrely, wearing a tweed jacket with braces and... _Is that a bow tie? _The man approaches calmly, quietly, as if John isn't lying there dying, ad it occurs to John that he hasn't called to this man for help, nor has he asked what the hell he's doing there. He doesn't know if it's because he inherently trusts this bow-tied tweed man or because his mind is being affected by his injury. To be honest, he doesn't care.

The man reaches him and leans down, balancing on his haunches, elbows resting on knobbly knees. John can't explain it to himself, but the man looks so ancient and sad and young all at the same time; his hair flops into his eyes a little and he wings it back, never breaking eye contact with John as they watch each other. _He must be hundreds of years old_, John thinks deliriously.

The sad man smiles, but so much hides behind it that it's almost not even a smile at all.

He leans in close, right by John's ear, and whispers, "This is not your day to die, John Watson."

And before he can wonder how this man knows his name, he has passed out again.

**Chapter 1: A Life Less Sedentary**

Nine Months Later

"Look at you," Sherlock muses, a strange combination of epiphany and contempt warring in his face. "Unbelievable."

"Sherlock," John interrupts before he can really get going. He tries to keep the warning out of his tone and instead tries to make him jump tracks, back into epiphany and away from hurling insults. "Want to tell us what's going on?"

"He's their hairdresser," Sherlock explains. There's a bright, arrogant look in his eye, and John knows exactly what's coming up: a long, breathless deduction, the police and forensics team looking on with greater and greater astonishment, which will cross over into disbelief and defensiveness as it goes on, finally ending in angered bewilderment as Sherlock finishes with a flourish of his coat, head turned slightly toward John so he can see John's reaction. John wonders prematurely how much of it is done to impress him (he guesses about thirty percent), prematurely because the deductions don't happen at all. Instead, Sherlock freezes in place, his eyes suddenly the size of dinner plates.

"_Oh_," he breathes, then takes off around the corner of the alley, his coat billowing behind him. John doesn't think for even a second; he just reacts on instinct, and his leg muscles tense and he's off after Sherlock before he can even think _Oh you sodding wanker_.

He catches Sherlock up fairly easily; they run at nearly the same pace now that John's limp has disappeared (for the most part), and they run. They love this, the running part, the adrenaline surge and pumping blood and generating heat while enveloped in frost breathing cold. Streetlamps and traffic lights cast multicoloured glowing shapes on the ground, creating sharp, deep shadows out of walls and alleys. They blur past, Sherlock slightly ahead, leading the way as always, John behind. _This _feels exactly right: following Sherlock into the dark places without knowing quite why. The whys and whens and wheres and whats and hows and whos all bleed away into the wind and desire takes their place ("what you want and what you're scared to try for," as Stephen King put it). All of it fades except the pounding of their hearts and their feet, both cracking along in tandem, until Sherlock stops short near he end of an alley and John runs full stop into his back.

"Jesus, Sherlock, some warning ne-mmph!" Sherlock has reached back without even looking and covered John's mouth with one gloved hand.

"Other side of the street, about three flats to the right," Sherlock whispers urgently. "His next victim. He won't have any weapons with him since he always uses things he finds around the victims' homes. We can catch him, easy."

John has to forcibly remove Sherlock's hand from his mouth. "Why not let the police pick him up? They've got cars!" he hisses.

Sherlock grins at him maniacally. "Running's more fun," he answers, and God help John Watson if he doesn't grin right back in agreement.

They watch for a few minutes before the murderer crosses the alleyway. About halfway across, he stops, clearly sensing eyes on him but unsure where they're coming from.

"Now," Sherlock breathes, and they break loose and run at him.

The man runs, and _God_ is he quick but Sherlock and John have been getting in some amazing practice lately. The murderer pulls a gun out of his coat pocket and shoots wildly backward, missing them both by a mile.

"Sherlock, you said he wouldn't have a weapon!" John shouts over the wind in his ears.

"There's always something!" Sherlock growls to himself. They pick up the pace as the man disappears behind a corner. "Follow him, catch him if you can!" Sherlock yells. "I'm going around!"

John doesn't question it. He just does as he's told. He's nearly caught the man when he whips his gun around, making John duck and lose his balance, tumbling ungracefully to the mucky ground. Perfectly timed, Sherlock whips around the corner and stops the murderer in his tracks with John's gun pointed right at the man's face, long forefinger resting calmly on the trigger.

"All right?" Sherlock asks John, but there's an amused tone to it rather than a worried one. John grimaces as he stands (he's not nearly as young as he used to be), but nothing seems to be broken or sticking out of his skin at horrible angles, so he nods stiffly to Sherlock.

"Call Lestrade." John does. Within moments, there are at least five squad cars surrounding the alley, and the murderer is being handcuffed and suddenly John is absolutely fucking exhausted. He leans against the wall, closing his eyes, nearly asleep in seconds, but Sherlock's hand on his shoulder is insistent.  
>"Your bed will be much more comfortable," Sherlock murmurs.<p>

"Don't we have to give statements or some such nonsense?" John asks blearily.

Sherlock smiles. "Told Lestrade we'd be in tomorrow," he announces, tugging John along behind him. "We're far too exhausted to do anything but go home and sleep it off."

"Quite right, too," John answers, but really, by the time they get home he's at least partially awake again. Enough to be hungry, anyway.

"Dinner?" he asks as he bustles around making tea in the kitchen.

"Starving," Sherlock answers, his nose buried in John's laptop, his fingers typing away furiously. He's curled up in one corner of the sofa, taking up an amazingly small amount of space.

"I'll order Chinese."

Ten minutes later, John settles himself on the other end of the sofa, flipping on the TV. "Is this you trying to keep me from writing up the case?" he asks, only half joking as he points to his laptop.

"You're perfectly welcome to my laptop," Sherlock mutters, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. "As long as you don't give it some ghastly title like all the others. _The Blue Carbuncle_, John, _honestly._"

John smiles a bit thinly; they're fairly new friends, only having lived together for five months, and John's still trying to get used to Sherlock's (mostly meaningless) ribbings. He's never particularly enjoyed being made fun of, but he knows it's as much a part of Sherlock to insult people as his right arm, and it's fine, it's all fine-

"John?"

Sherlock is giving him a soft look, clearly considering whether he should say something or not; eventually he decides not and goes back to his furious typing.  
>John falls into a light doze, a half-eaten carton of cold Chinese food tilted against his leg, his head tipped back over the edge of the couch. When he wakes, he sees Sherlock has fallen asleep as well, his curly head inches from John's leg, face buried in the backrest. John smiles and gently turns his head up a little so he doesn't suffocate himself and covers him up with a stolen orange shock blanket. Then he climbs the stairs, crawls under his own covers, and falls asleep instantly.<p>

**Another A/N: The "place between sleep and awake" line comes from the film Hook, and the Stephen King line about desire comes from my favourite book It. I own neither of those, but I love them to death.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimers from before still stand.**

**Part 2: The Night You Came Into My Life**

6,544,823 Years in the Future and 4.7 Light Years Away

"No, Amy, for the last time, I am not taking the bow tie off!" the Doctor exclaims. "This is a _date! _I have to look my _best! _That is what people do, isn't it, on dates? Look their best? I never was much of a date person. Or much of a person at all, really."

"Doctor!" Amy's voice comes through tinny and cold; rather than filling the TARDIS with its warmth and love as it did before, it sort of winds around the console and dissipates like frost breath in a quick puff of air. Then again, she _is _6,544,823 years in the past. "Focus! Is there something you wanted to ask Rory and me?"

"Ah!" The Doctor slaps his forehead. "Yes, may I take your daughter out on a date?"

There is a tiny pause, which sort of grows and morphs into a big pause, which grows and morphs into an adult-sized pause, and then finally the Doctor realizes he's probably done something a bit wonky here, although he can't for the lives of him figure out what.

"Doctor," Rory says in his 'nurse talking to a demented patient' voice, "you and River are married. You do realize that?"

"I do know that, Rory, I was there, pay attention!" He reaches out and bops a spot of the TARDIS console roughly the height of Rory's forehead. _Gods, _he misses that man, that nurse who waited so bloody long and fought to save a wife who didn't want to be saved on the loneliest planet in the universe. That man.

He loves and hates this; talking to Amy and Rory feels like he's yanking his hearts out and beating them flat with a hammer. But he can't not. It just gets to be too lonely. Forever yawns out in front of him and behind him and below him and everywhere and most days he is fine, most days he likes it, revels in the Infinity. But then there are moments when he feels like a young child again, small and terrified and shaking, being forced to stare deep into the Untempered Schism, his teacher's hand weighing a ton or two on his shoulder. He wants to run and never stop, and not the good kind of running where he's running away from fighting: this is the bad kind of running, the kind of running that only ends in more death and more pain that he cannot stop.

So he calls them.

They always answer, and they always love him, and that is mostly enough to give him the strength to not run, to stay and breathe and just exist for a while. He needs that sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.

He can't help his weakness, this "loving people" thing. And when he hears Amy and Rory's voices over the phone, tinny and muted though they are, he nearly bursts into tears each time. Those voices mean someone loves him, whether they should or not.

"I don't know how these human-ey things work!" he says, playing up his frustration for them, because he loves playing for them, and they love him for it too. "It's all so... Human-ey! Dates, outings, dressing up; she's expecting me at nine p.m. _sharp_, do you _know _how hard it is to get that exactly right-"

"You've got all the time in the world to figure out how to get to your date on time," Amy reminds him, laughter hiding behind her words now.

The Doctor sighs dramatically. "Oh, I suppose your right," he moans. "But! Should I wear... The blue bow tie or the red one? Red is a more violent colour, or so I've heard, but it's _also _a sexy colour?"

"Oh God, I can't do this," Rory mutters; he's half giggling now too, amusement and horror tinging his voice.

"Wear the blue one, if you must," Amy advises. She deepens her voice to make it sound more official and professional, which makes the Doctor smile into thin air. "But only if they match the braces! What colour are your braces?"

"Um... Rainbow?"

He can almost see Amy drop her head in mock shame.

An orange light begins to blink; well, blink is a kinder work for what it's doing. Really, it's flashing bright and hot in his eyes and making a horrible noise to go along with it.

"AaaaAAAAAHHH," the Doctor yells, turning knobs and flipping switches. "Oh, this is absolutely very bad and not good in any way! Amy, Rory, the califibrilation system's malfunctioning, I've got to go recharge before the TARDIS explodes!" The TARDIS begins to toss about, forcing him to grab onto a knob to keep from smashing into the floor. "GOTTA GO!" he shouts into the receiver.

"All right, call us!" Amy shouts back, and after a few tries he is able to reach the hook and hang the phone on it. He works his way around the console as the tossing about becomes more violent. He smashes a few buttons and hopes he's got the right setting so he can land on a Recharger Spot-

_CRASH._

The Doctor loses his grip and goes tumbling across the floor. He comes to a crashing halt, flat on his back, his legs propped up against the front door.

"Well," he huffs, laughing, "that could have gone a lot worse!" He flips over backwards and creeps up to the door, listening. He could be anywhere, really; Recharger Spots can be anywhere, anywhen-middle of a warzone, deep in the core of a star, edge of the universe-and sometimes they move.

This is his favourite part.

Without look at the coordinates, he throws open the door and bounds outside.

Oh.

London, England, 2011, Marylebone. Evening, just after sunset, sometime in May.

How normal.

He grins anyway. _Marylebone... Why is that familiar?_

"OH! Baker Street!" he exclaims as he spots the street sign. He giggles, pure childish delight (talking to Amy and Rory really does help), and secures the controls on the TARDIS so she can recharge. Then he takes off down Baker Street to see the former home of the greatest detective in history, humming as he strolls along with his hands in his pockets.

_Bzzzzzzzz_

_Huh?_

His sonic screwdriver is buzzing.

"Well, that's never happened before," he mutters as he takes it out of his coat pocket and examines it. The thing vibrates in his hand, erratically, long buzzes and short buzzes intermixed and random. He reads it like a book, and his eyes gradually widen. _Whatever it is, it's big and dangerous and very very close... _And then it disappears. The sonic stops buzzing and reads as normal; he presses a button, and it works just fine.

"Strange," he drawls to himself, looking around the darkened street. He feels the tug of adventure and grins again, nearly clapping his hands with delight. _The game is afoot, _he thinks, then realizes exactly how appropriate that is.

He decides to get a flat.

Seconds afterward, he sees a sign in a dusty window that reads "Flat for Rent: 221C Baker Street. Inquire within." "Perfect!" Without hesitation, he walks up and knocks on the heavy wooden door.

"Jooooooohn!" A deep voice, muffled through the wood, calls out petulantly. Faint pounding on the stairs, just a tiny bit uneven as though the person has a bit of a limp. The door opens seconds later to reveal a short, stocky man in a striped jumper, sandy blonde and grey hair wisping over his forehead. There are worn lines around his mouth and eyes, like he worries far too much, and he squints in the dusky fading light.

"Hello?" the man says, slightly suspicious, vaguely defensive.

"Hi!" the Doctor says brightly. "I'm here about the flat for rent!"

The man's face clears. "All right, come on in," he says gesturing, and the doctor steps in, closing the door behind him. "I'll get Mrs. Hudson. What's your name?"

"Rory Jones," he lies without hesitation, his eyes sweeping over everything. The man walks through the foyer, limping just a little, and knocks on a door labeled 221A.

"Mrs. Hudson!" he calls. "Got someone to look at the basement flat!" He limps back toward the Doctor, holding out his hand to shake. The Doctor eyes it, then takes it tentatively. The man has a strong grip, bordering on tight. "John Watson," he says warmly. "I live upstairs, in 221B."

_Wait a second._

The Doctor pulls back, no longer smiling. "Sorry?"

"John Watson?" the man repeats. He frowns a little. "What's wrong with my name?"

The Doctor exhales in a slow stream of breath. "Oh, _dear._"

**Part 3: I'm A Saddened Man, I'm A Broken Toy**

Two Days Later

"Have you spoken to that bloke in the basement yet?"

Sherlock is not so much lying on the couch as he is sprawled over it like an overgrown blanket; one arm is flung over the back rest and the other hand brushes the floor, his legs hanging and swinging over one arm rest. The scowl has not left his face all day. _BORED! ENTERTAIN ME! _his body language screams. John has been ignoring him all day, but Sherlock Holmes is not the only person in the world who gets bored.

He grunts in response to John's question. "Boring."

"Actually, he's rather fascinating," John says. He sees that Sherlock isn't really listening, so he decides to see how far he can go. "He suggested that he'd like to grow asparagus in our backyard." (That was actually true.) No response. "He builds modern art sculptures in his room." Nothing. "He's actually an alien; he showed me his tentacles." Sherlock did not so much as blink or change his expression. "I'm thinking of moving in with him."

"What?" Sherlock barks sharply, sitting up.

"Gotcha," John smirks.

Sherlock groans and flops back down, seemingly taking up even more space than he did before. "You're being ridiculous," he growls, too sulky to even come up with a good insult.

"And so are you," John admonishes. "It's only been three days since your last case! There's usually at least a two week gap between a case and Sulking Time."

"I am not _sulking_," Sherlock, well, sulks. Then John looks at him, really looks at him. There are dark half moons underneath his eyes, accentuating the paleness in his skin. His bones stick out more than normal, like he hasn't eaten in days (which, in Sherlock's case, who knows at this point). He looks absolutely wrecked, and for no reason.

"Something wrong?" John asks, trying to sound casual, but of course Sherlock hears the worry underneath.

"_Don't _bother showering me with your needy concern, _John,_" Sherlock spits acidly, rolling onto his side, away from the world. "I neither require it nor want it."

John nods, a short, annoyed motion. "All right then." His voice is neutral and quiet; John Watson has a PhD in conflict avoidance, and so he walks, quite calmly, out of the room and down the steps.

He almost makes it out the front door when that man from the basement who calls himself Rory Jones comes barging inside, his arms full of huge and misshapen paper bags, all of them fit to burst.

"John!" he exclaims delightedly. "Would you mind-oh no-"

One of the bags nearly escapes from his grasp, but John is quick and catches it before it hits the ground.

"Need some help?" John asks, smiling a little.

Rory grins at him from behind the massive pile of bags, and the smile makes him look twelve years old. John gets the door open, a bit of a challenge since the room is much more full of stuff than it was three days ago.

John doesn't know quite what to make of this new man. He seems to be visiting on holiday, though as far as John can grasp, he doesn't have an actual home or place where he belongs. He goes in and out at random; John hears the doors slamming at the oddest times, once at four thirty in the morning. He seems nice enough; the few times John has run into him on the way in and out of the flat, he rambles on about the strangest things, but he always manages to make John laugh somehow. At times, though, his voice drops, and John shivers with residual fear and and adrenaline.

"Just set it down anywhere," Rory says, and so John drops the heavy bag right where he stands. As he looks around, he realizes that where he's standing seems to be the only open space in the entire flat. There's a path that leads from the front door to the next room, where John assumes it continues through to the other rooms; other than that, the flat is covered, nearly from floor to ceiling, with stacked furniture. He doesn't even have a chance to ask before the Doctor practically leaps up to him, staring intently. He bends his knees and stands on his tiptoes, shrinking and towering, moving around John in a circle, eyes never leaving him.

"You... Are... The _perfect _height!" Rory mutters, half to himself. "Exactly the person I need."

John is used to being scrutinized; he does live with Sherlock bloody Holmes, after all. But even this is a little unnerving. Rory makes his way back around to John's front standing just a bit closer than is normal. "Want to help me with an experiment?" he asks John, his voice low and dangerous in a way that John has never, ever been able to resist.

"Sure," John agrees.

"Good." Rory nods once and whirls in a dramatic circle, pointing his finger right at John's nose. John, somehow, doesn't mind; he's become oddly endeared to this strange man, and he smiles. "We start first thing tomorrow," he whispers. "Right now, I think someone needs you upstairs."

John's heart drops. _Oh God, not another one_, he thinks despairingly. _I don't think I can stand living with two of them._ Nevertheless, he is impressed, and he begins to ask, "How do you know?" but Rory puts his forefinger over his own mouth, shushing John. John shrugs and turns away, walking out of the room and upstairs, back to his own flat he shares with the other madman in 221.

All of the lights are off in the flat when John opens the door, and even though it's mid-evening and still unnaturally sunny outside, the flat feels gloomy and oppressive. Sherlock is still on the couch, but now he's curled up into himself, arms wrapped around his middle, head bowed. Something feels very off about the scene; it takes a moment, but John finally spots the reason why.

A small black case on the coffee table, latched closed, an unused hypodermic needle lying in front of it.

"Sherlock-"

"Don't," Sherlock says, his raspy voice nearly unrecognizable as his own.

John is frozen for only a split second, his insides warring between protectiveness and avoidance, before he snaps forward and takes the case and needle. Sherlock does not move to stop him, and he walks briskly to the bathroom, pouring the contents of the case into the toilet and flushing without looking. He takes the needle apart and tosses it into the bin, tying the bag up and taking it out of the flat; tosses it in a skip in the alley behind 221 and doesn't look back.

Sherlock is still in the same position when John returns and sits down beside him. They sit in the silent darkness for a while, still and tense, not looking at each other. The air hangs heavy around them, thick with Sherlock's shame and John's uncertainty. John doesn't understand, can't even pretend to understand, and he has no idea how to show Sherlock that he doesn't think less of him, or judge him, or hate him.

Then John lets go of his brain and, on pure instinct, raises his arm and wraps it around Sherlock's shoulders.

After a few extremely tense seconds, Sherlock relaxes just a little. That's all.

_It's not a lot_, John thinks, _but it's enough_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Again, the disclaimer still stands.**

**Part 4: I Will Keep Tongue-Tied**

_Uuuuuugh._

John wakes up the next morning to rather insistent knocking on the door, so loud he could hear it from his room upstairs. He stumbles out of bed, wearing only a t-shirt and shorts, and blunders down the steps and pulls open the door.

Rory Jones is standing in front of him, grinning his ears off, his arms raised as though he is expecting a hug.

"It's experiment time!" he says brightly. His voice is like a ray of sunshine right in John's face.

"Oh, God," John mumbles. "Completely forgot."

"Ten minutes or I'm leaving without you," Rory warns as he whirls swishily and clatters back downstairs. "We need a tricycle and three hula hoops and as many PVC pipes as we can get our hands on and..."

The sound of his babbling voice fades and is eventually cut off my the door to 221C slamming closed, though John can hear that he's still talking. He's too exhausted to smile and shake his head, but he grunts, and it means basically the same thing.

He takes a very quick shower and sits on his bed, wrapped in a towel, head in his hands, trying not to think about why he's so tired. It doesn't work, of course.

_After a few minutes, John pulled his arm away, feeling very awkward. As he stood, though, Sherlock brushed his hand over John's elbow, as though he wanted to grab on but wasn't sure if that was allowed. The expression on his face was one of silent begging (please don't go please please) and stabbed John through the heart, and he melted a little bit right then and there. That was about the time that John decided he didn't really want to go on that date with the receptionist anyway._

_They stayed up until two in the morning watching a Star Wars marathon on telly. Sherlock's scathing commentary made John laugh so hard his sides hurt, and eventually Sherlock even loosened up a little bit, smirking whenever he got a good guffaw out of John. Finally, John fell asleep in his chair; his head lolled to the side, and when Sherlock woke him up fifteen minutes later, he could feel the crick in his neck. Sherlock directed him up the stairs with an unusually gentle hand on his back, and he collapsed into bed without another thought, asleep before he could even pull up the quilts._

John raises his head and forces himself to get dressed. Today will hopefully be different. He prays to whatever God there might or might not be that he doesn't find Sherlock coked out on the couch; one, because he doesn't want his flatmate to hurt himself any more than he already does, and two, because he _has_ to know what Rory is planning. Because what possible experiment could require a tricycle and massive amounts of PVC pipes?

He makes it downstairs in nine minutes and fifteen seconds (thankfully, Sherlock is nowhere to be seen). Rory steps out of his flat with that unbelievably childish smile when John knocks.

"Ready?" he grins.

John can't help but smile back. It's the same sort of tugging at the edges of his lips as he felt when he first made Sherlock laugh at the crime scene. _We can't giggle, it's a crime scene, stop it!_

They go to several stores in search of the things that Rory needs (which include an extension cord and twelve plastic bags), and neither of them really stops laughing for about two hours. John tells him stories about Sherlock, and Rory talks about the various adventures he's had around the world, including a woman he met who climbs the Great Wall of China sometimes, just as a hobby.

"Why are you staying here, then?" John asks when they settle down a little. They're in the back of a cab, some of the boxes wedged between them, the rest on the floor and in the boot. "Bloody hell, you could be anywhere."

"My vehicle needed a bit of a rest," Rory says, whipping his fringe out of his eyes. "Also"-he waves his hand about to indicate the London area in general-"I like it here. People are fascinating and fun wherever you happen to go, it doesn't matter if you're in Moscow or on the moon or living miles from everyone in the woods as a hermit. People are always interesting. That's why they're my favourite." And then Rory's face _shifts_, minutely, and suddenly his smile turns sad and ancient, almost not like a smile at all, even though the corners of his mouth are technically turned upward. It hurts John to look at, so he glances down, feeling rather like he's intruding on some sort of private moment, and also feeling, somewhat inexplicably, like he's seen that exact smile before, that smile full of meaning and love and far, far too many world weary years alone.

Fortunately, the cab arrives at Baker Street just then, and the next ten minutes are spent struggling to carry the multitude of heavy boxes and bags into 221C.

Not five minutes after they've got everything into the house, John's phone buzzes.

_Where are you?-SH_

_221C. Why?_

And then he hears the pounding on the stairs above them and realizes what is about to happen.

"JOHN!" Sherlock Holmes is pounding on the door to 221C, practically bouncing up and down. John opens the door, and is greeted with yet another blinding grin (_God, what is it with madmen and grinning at me like that?_).

"Can I safely deduce that you've got a case?" John ventures.

"Quite obvious, yet completely accurate," Sherlock responds. He's vibrating with energy. "Come on, let's go! I told Lestrade we'd be there in ten minutes!"  
>"Well, I-" For the first time since the Five Pips case, John hesitates. He looks back at Rory.<p>

"That's all right, go on," Rory says brightly, watching them with a bit of awe, like he's witnessing some sort of Historically Important Act happen right in front of him. "Be lost without your Boswell, aye?"

Sherlock frowns. "My what?"

"Never mind," John mutters, struggling not to smirk at Sherlock's lack of historical knowledge when it came to anything other than crime. "Let's go, then. Where to?"

The Doctor watches them go with wonder in his face and an ache in his heart. He knows this story all too well, knows the absolute agony that Sherlock will put John through in the future and the guilt and pain Sherlock will feel himself, and despises his own nature for a moment-the fact that he knows and can do nothing about it, that he can't stop the inevitable-it breaks his hearts, just as effectively and painfully as if it were the first time, several hundred years ago.  
>His first night in London, the Doctor returned to the TARDIS to do what research he could on Sherlock Holmes and John Watson and discovered that they'd fallen through the cracks in the skin of the universe before the Pandorica; if he'd asked Amy who Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were at Stonehenge, she wouldn't have had a clue, even though they were possibly the greatest crime-solving duo of all Time. Something very strange had happened after the Doctor rebooted everything, though: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson ended up, somehow, in 2010. At first he hadn't understood why. He still doesn't, not really, because some things are beyond even Time Lord comprehension, but he knows it has something to do with them being a Fixed Pair.<p>

A Fixed Pair is something that baffles even the Doctor. The most concrete information he knows is that in a Fixed Pair, two people are destined to meet, and when they do, they change the course of history. They're almost nothing like Fixed Points, which must always happen the same way at the same time or everything breaks down; no, Fixed Pairs, as far as the Doctor can tell, are actually much more unstable in Time than even the changeable points. They can be moved and adjusted in Time, and sometimes they won't meet the same way, or they'll lose each other and meet again, or, in the case of an Event (like the TARDIS exploding), they can (apparently) be taken from their original Time and transplanted in a different Time and no one will notice the difference.  
>But they will always meet, always. That's what a Fixed Pair means. It is, essentially, Destiny. The Doctor has never believed in Destiny before, but there it is, in the flat right above him.<p>

And he knows, he _knows _he shouldn't be messing with that. He should just leave them alone and let them be absolutely brilliant without him. But he knows as well that the loneliness is starting to kill him. Talking on the phone with Amy and Rory might help, for a time, but it's never enough, not really. Donna was right (he winces internally, thinking of her). He needs someone. If he doesn't have someone, he thinks he might eventually just die of sadness. _Can you die of sadness? _he wonders. _Probably. You can die of anything if it lasts long enough, I suppose._

He wants, so badly, to show John everything. John is obviously the kind of person who is attracted to danger and excitement and running; hell, he lives with Sherlock bloody Holmes. The Doctor and John could be magnificent together (and then he wouldn't be alone anymore). And maybe, just maybe, John could have them both.

Gods, the Doctor knows he's being selfish. He shakes his head to clear it as he puts the finishing touches on his experiment, which is actually a bit of a trap for what he's figured out is a lonely Steetlebus, nearly the last of its kind, stuck and starving on the wrong planet. He needs to make sure the trap is in working order, take it apart, and rebuild it in the TARDIS. He's planning to take the Steetlebus back to the beginning of its planet's life so that it can repopulate, and he wants very much to take John along for the ride.

And even though he knows that he shouldn't, that he _can't_, he's already planning to ask John to come with him.


	4. Chapter 4

**The disclaimer stands.**

**Part 5: Live A Life Extraordinary With Me**

It's one of those locked room murders, and Sherlock is so excited that John sort of wants to take his heart rate, just to see how fast it's really going. Sherlock is deducing so fast that only John can keep up; Lestrade and Donovan keep interrupting him and asking what the _hell _he's talking about, which makes Sherlock irritated, and then when he repeats himself, slightly slower, they give him that "You've got to be joking" look, which only agitates Sherlock more (not because they're looking down at him but because they don't _get it _and they're _not observing properly_), and pretty soon John is going to go mad from the ticking explosive that is Sherlock Holmes.

Eventually, Sherlock finishes and sweeps out of the room, and several other things happen but they become fairly unimportant in John's mind when the murderer cracks Sherlock over the head with a pistol. Sherlock drops like a ton of bricks, and John doesn't even have to think; he kicks the man's kneecap in and slams his head against the brick wall of the alley.

"Sherlock!" He drops to him knees beside the consulting detective, who sits up groggily.

"I am concussed," Sherlock announces. John checks his eyes and yeah, he's probably concussed. The diagnosis is pretty much confirmed when Sherlock leans to the side and vomits up what little was in his stomach, skillfully aiming directly for John's shoes. John just pats him on the back and silently forgives him.

After Lestrade makes the arrest, John takes Sherlock home. The cab ride is quiet and a little bumpy, and Sherlock spends most of it leaning heavily on John's shoulder.

"I'm sorry for throwing up on your shoes," Sherlock mumbles, nuzzling his head into John's neck.

"That's all right."

John tries to send Sherlock to bed when they get home, but Sherlock in his altered mental state clearly has other plans.

"I have to check on the fingers!" he protests, not quite as strongly as he would have, were his full mental capacities in check. "I have to make sure-"

"No, you don't," John states firmly. "You need to go to sleep. As in _now_."

As it turns out, Sherlock gives in fairly easily, and John wonders if it's the concussion or if he actually didn't sleep the night before.

John feels a little too wound up to go to bed just yet, so he makes a spot of tea for himself and settles into his chair with a book. Exactly sixteen minutes later, there are feet pounding on the stairs leading up to the flat, and he's opened the door before Rory even has a chance to knock. His eyes shine with mischief.

"It's done. It works," he whispers.

John slips out of the flat and closes the door behind him. "That's great," he replies, genuinely happy for Rory before he realizes that he has no idea what the experiment is supposed to be doing. "Um, _what _works, exactly?"

Rory turns serious, and John feels that thrill of darkness, of danger, and he can't help but shiver just a little bit. "I'm going to show you something, John," he says. "And it's going to seem impossible, but it's really, really not."

Frowning, John straightens up. "What are you talking about?"

"Come with me."

"I can't. I have to be here to wake Sherlock up. He's got a concussion."

Rory looks at him for a long minute, his expression incredibly sad. "All right," he says softly. "Do you trust me?"

John says "Yes" before he even has a chance to think about it. And, contrary to his nature, he _does_. The only two people in the world he truly trusts are a detective genius who calls himself a sociopath and a man who concocts experiments out of tricycles and has far too much furniture. And really, he wouldn't have it any other way.

Rory tells John to close his eyes, and John does as he's told. Then there are cool hands on his face, and that's good because they anchor him to the earth while his mind is slowly inundated with memories that are not his, with regenerations and age and war and blood and death and suffering, with unending despair and unfathomable loneliness, with planets and stars and the whole bloody universe and the haunting music of the Ood (whom he's never heard of yet suddenly knows as if they were his own kin) drifting through like a connecting thread. And in the middle of it all stands this man (_Doctor?_), who changes his face when he's about to die and tries desperately to save as many as he can and his hearts break every time he can't.

Rory (no, it's the Doctor now) takes his hands away, and the slow flood of information stops immediately. John hears himself gasping and feels tears on his face that he doesn't remember forming. His eyes are still closed, and he keeps them that way, fearing if he opens them he'll just start running and never look back. The Doctor's fingers are cool on his face again, and he winces, ready for another mental attack, but nothing happens; all the Doctor does is wipe John's tears away.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor murmurs softly. "That may have been a bit too much."

"It's fine," John whispers. He gets himself fully under control and opens his eyes, trying a small smile. It feels foreign on his face, tugging in all the wrong places, after being shown all of the Doctor's despair. "It's all fine."

"Do you still want to come watch my experiment?"

Inexplicably, John nods. He can understand a little better what this strange alien man is, but a lot of it was too big for his tiny mind to really handle. And yet, after all of that, John still trusts him.

The Doctor smiles his thousand watt smile, and even though John knows at least part of what's behind it now, he smiles back. "I have to be back in an hour, though."

"That's fine. I can get you back five minutes after we leave."

John's brow furrows. "What do you mean?"

They walk out to the end of the street, where a blue police box John has never noticed before sits on the corner of the sidewalk. The Doctor smirks. "I kept this one because I love seeing your faces when you go inside," he says. "Except Rory, Rory was a bit of a disappointment, but well, Rory's Rory, I suppose."

John stares, confused. "But it's just a police box," he points out.

The Doctor raises his eyebrows. "Is it?" he intones. Then he lifts his hand and snaps his fingers, and the doors squeak open. A warm glow emanates from inside, and John steps forward, following the Doctor into the box that is clearly not a box.

The first thing John thinks is _This is too much_. Because at first, it is. He's utterly overwhelmed by the size and sheer impossibility of it, so much that he staggers and nearly falls over. Then the Doctor catches him, and he closes his eyes for a moment, and he's all right.

The second thing John thinks is _What is this place?_

He must have said it out loud, because the Doctor answers him. "This is my TARDIS. It stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. She takes me wherever I want to go. Well, not wherever," he corrects himself, glaring rather fondly at the central console, "I should say she takes me wherever I want to go whenever she feels like it and the rest of the time we just end up somewhere completely off course which most of the time is all right, but there was that one time when we ended up in the middle of a Ligurtarian dogfight, Ligurtarians _do_ love their dogfights and I'm rambling a bit, aren't I?"

"A bit, yeah," John croaks.

"Sorry, I do that a lot." He bounds around the console and lands in front of John. "So? What do you think?"

John lets out a huffing breath, half in laughter, half in pure disbelief. "You've got a _time machine?_"

The Doctor grins and spins away. "Yes, although technically it's a time _and space _machine."

"Who's Rory?"

The Doctor stops spinning quite so fast. "Friend of mine," he says, intending to be flippant, but it doesn't work, and he deflates. "He turned into a plastic Roman and then waited for his wife for two thousand years." There's a pause, and then: "I ruined him a little."

John has no idea what to say to that, so he ignores it and keeps looking around, and he finally notices the contraption off to the side and recognizes it as the Doctor's experiment by the tricycle in the middle of a bunch of pipes sticking out at all angles. It resembles a spider on its back, oddly enough. The Doctor sees him looking and nods. "Yes, I suppose it's not really an experiment. It's much more like a trap, really."

"A trap for what?"

"The Steetlebus."

"The _what?_"

"It's a nearly extinct alien race that has the ability to displace itself in space. Most Steetlebi aren't really smart enough to realize they can do this, so mostly they do it purely by accident and give the other planets something to talk about. This one came here on purpose, though. Last of its kind, poor thing. Just wanted a bit of company."

John can't tell, not quite, but he thinks he might be getting the hang of this. "So why take it back?"

"Steetlebi can't survive very long on earth food. It doesn't work with their binary digestive system. I'm going to take it back to the beginning of its planet's life so that it can repopulate. Poor thing won't ever have to be lonely again."

"How do you catch it?" John asks.

"With this." The Doctor pulls out a short wandlike contraption with a few red buttons and a green light on the end.

"What is that?"

"It's my sonic screwdriver," the Doctor answers proudly. "Works on everything, except weapons and wood. I still need to invent a setting for wood."

"What does it do?" John is absolutely fascinated.

"Lots of things. Like this." He points the sonic screwdriver at the Steetlebus Trap and presses a button on the side, and a high pitched warbling sound fills the room. "Should be just a few more minutes and he'll come right-Ah, there we are!"

John's first impression of the Steetlebus is that it looks like a dog; upon really looking at it, he decides that it really doesn't remind him of a dog at all. More like a large bear on all fours, except this thing's torso is shaped like a triangle so it's on all threes, really, and it's feet (paws?) are long and really quite tentacle-y and it's three feet taller than John even on all threes. The Steetlebus bounds right into the trap and lets the Doctor close it around him. Then it _smiles_ at John, lies down, and promptly falls asleep.

"Friendly little thing," says the Doctor fondly, petting the beast's shaggy head. "Although you probably shouldn't ever go near it with a waffle iron. I hear they get a tad crazy."

John just shakes his head and giggles. The giggles turn into laughter, hysterical enough to be a little frightening, but then the Doctor touches his face and he's calm again and everything is all right. Well, relatively speaking.

"Shall we?" the Doctor asks.

John nods. His hands are steady and his leg doesn't hurt at all. He's ready.

"Hold on!" The Doctor runs to the console, grabs a lever, and _yanks._ The TARDIS tosses John aside, but he's quick and grabs the edge of the railing, laughing uproariously. The column in the middle begins to glow brightly and shift up and down with a lovely grating grinding sound (somewhere deep down in John's mind where thought is no longer conscious but instinctive, he _knows _he's heard it before), and they're off.

The Steetlebus's planet (Delta 45, the Doctor calls it) is huge. Everything about it is big, from the massive twisting trees all tangled together in a forest to the wide orange river that splits the planet down the middle to the giant upside down hanging mountains that hover above everything. Speechless for what seems like the twelfth time in one night, John gapes up at slivers of deep blue sky he can see through the mountains.

He hears a rustling behind him; the Doctor letting the Steetlebus go, probably. Then the Doctor comes to stand beside him. "This was Delta 45 before the Time War," he says, his voice soft and full of the residual pain of a different species.

"What's the Time War?" John wants to ask, but the question dies in his throat when he sees the Doctor's face. He resembles Sherlock from the night before so much in that moment that it shakes John down to his core; all that guilt and pain and shame simmering right there under the surface, so close that John has to look away.

The Doctor takes John back to Baker Street. John can feel the Doctor's eyes on him as he walks, and instead of opening his front door, he turns around and asks, "Where will you go?"

The Doctor shrugs. "Everywhere."

"What is it you do?"

"Everything."

John nods, knowing he won't get a clearer answer, and turns again to go home.

"Come with me."

John whirls sharply. "What?"

The Doctor grimaces at his own words, like he knows he shouldn't have said it but refuses to take it back. "Come with me. I like company when I go places. Been knocking around on my own for a while."

"Doctor..."

"I know, you've got your other madman upstairs," he says, looking down.

"Yes," John says desperately. He wants, oh he _wants _to go with the Doctor so badly. "You said you could have me back any time I asked, right? So he wouldn't even notice I was gone?"

"Yes, I could."

"Then yes."

"...Yes?"

"Yes, I'll come with you."

The Doctor's face lights up like a bloody Christmas tree. "Brilliant!"

John grins. "Just give me one minute. I've got to go wake him up for a moment, and then I'll be right back. Just wait here." He bounds up to his door and takes the stairs two at a time.


	5. Chapter 5

**There will never be a chapter in which the disclaimer does not stand.**

**Part 6: My Face Has Said Too Much**

_Darkness and softness. Muffled black sounds and dull muted pain. A small shuffling noise and a sinking sensation on the bed: smells like John. He's reaching for-no, not the light-_

*click*

_Oh, not too terrible. He's shaded it with his hand, lovely man. Still hurts. Keep eyes closed, squeeze them tight, bury face in pillow. That's better._

"I'm sorry," John murmurs.

_That's all right, John, I don't mind._

_Hands on my shoulders, turning me over. Light is soft orange behind my eyelids. Maybe I can crack them open._

"Come on, Sherlock, wake up for a second."

_Only for you, John._

_His hand feels so cool on my forehead._

"Open your eyes for me."

_Yes._

Sherlock's eyes open millimeter by agonizing millimeter, and then his breath catches in his throat.

_John is different._

Not in any calculable way, of course, and that's what unnerves Sherlock. He looks exactly the same. Same wrinkles, same ridiculous jumper, same height, same weight, same soft Doctor's smile and precise rough fingers. Sherlock hates that he can't find any physical differences to justify this sense that John isn't the same, that he has somehow _changed_; he just knows, instinctively. John seems _heavier_, more weighed down by world-weary sadness, like his entire worldview has been shattered and rebuilt by someone full of so much anguish.

But that feeling of safety and trust that Sherlock has always felt around John doesn't go away, so he says nothing. He doesn't move or speak or do anything except look at John, who takes his hand away and clicks the light off and tells Sherlock in a respectful whisper to go back to sleep. And Sherlock, possibly for the first time in years, immediately does as he's told.

.

_You can't do this._

_Yes, I can. I've already done it._

_There's still time to run. Run. Get out before you ruin everything._

_I ruin everyone else, too. Why is this any different?_

_Because it's John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. If you step one toe out of line, you could rip several holes in the universe._

_...I know._

_Why are you doing this, then?_

_Because I have to. Because I'm selfish and horrid and vain and I need him. I'm so lonely I might die of it._

_Then die. The universe can survive without you._

_I don't want to die._

_Too bad. Surprise, everyone dies._

And this, though John will never understand it, is why the Doctor leaves him at 221B Baker Street that night and then comes back for him a week later.

**Part 7: I'm A Broken Boy**

John wakes up the next morning and for two full seconds does not remember what happened.

Then, everything crashes down.

He remembers the _vworp vworp vworp _of the Doctor's time machine as he closed the door to Sherlock' room; remembers running out in blind panic, chanting under his breath _no, no, no, don't leave me, don't leave me, please please please please_

It didn't matter. The Doctor and his mad blue box were gone when he stumbled out into the street.

He stares up at the ceiling, that dull, horrible blunt ache still pressing on his chest.

_You can't show someone the universe and then take it all away, Doctor._

For the next week, he walks around with his new knowledge of the universe in his head, and it hurts. He goes to work, plays doctor, chats with Sarah, comes home goes to bed. On his days off, he watches Sherlock perform his experiments and takes the blunt force of Sherlock's insults as he slowly descends into destructive boredom with distant silence. Sherlock hardly notices, of course. He rarely pays attention to things he doesn't care about.

Or so John thought.

On the sixth night, Sherlock makes tea. Normally, John would be suspicious, because Sherlock never makes tea, least of all when he's bored. This time, John just takes it with a quiet "Thank you" and sets it down on the arm of his chair.

He's sort of looking at the medical journal in his lap rather than reading when he hears the first scraping notes of Sherlock's violin. He inhales an exasperated breath to ask him not to play, but the next few measure make him snap his mouth shut.

_Oh._

Two months ago, Harry Watson had been placed in hospital with the beginning stages of liver failure. John had gone to see her, and she'd screamed him out of the room. He kept his cool all the way home but collapsed at bottom top of the stairs leading to their flat, in tears. Sherlock padded down and sat on the stair above him, giving John space. It took several minutes for John to calm down, and when he did, Sherlock asked in his low, curious voice, "So, how did the meeting with Harry go?" John had laughed, a little hysterically, and followed Sherlock into the flat. That night, Sherlock had played the violin for John, his favourite music.

He is playing the same music now, facing away from John, staring blankly out into the street as he loses himself in the notes.

John doesn't notice the tears in his eyes until they fall, burning and embarrassed, down his cheeks. He knows Sherlock would never say so, and if asked he'd deny it, but John knows Sherlock is doing this for him.

John closes his eyes and lets himself get lost in Sherlock's music.

When he wakes up five hours later in the dark with a pillow under his head and a blanket he doesn't remember pulling over himself, it's because he hears the grinding grating sounds of the Doctor's time machine outside.


	6. Chapter 6

**Do I need to repeat myself about the disclaimer?**

**Part 8: I Told You That I Loved You, Dear**

"What are you doing here, Doctor?" John spits out as he shivers in the cool night air.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor apologizes, his hands raised in a calming gesture. "There was an emergency, the TARDIS started going all wonky and I had to dematerialize or else it would have just exploded everywhere, and we do NOT want that happening. Again. Last time that happened, it nearly erased all of existence."

"So," John says suspiciously, "Why didn't you come back right away? You're a Time Lord."

"Slight miscalculation." The Doctor waves his hand, dismissing John's underlying accusations like he's swatting lazily at a fly. "Last time it happened, I missed the mark by twelve years. I only missed it by a week because I wasn't paying full attention. Apologies." He leveled his gaze at John, who felt a familiar shiver zig zag down his spine. "Still want to come along?"

And it's _wrong_ and _selfish _and _stupid_, but John can't help it. He grins in spite of himself and answers, "Oh God, yes."

_And John goes, and it's brilliant for a while. The Doctor shows him everything; they argue and banter and sit silently and watch the stars and get involved in a few small battles and nearly die and save each other and it's bloody wonderful, it really is. John is constantly, deeply happy and running and so, so fucking alive and he loves the Doctor absolutely to bits and the Doctor loves him right back, just as he does all of the people he steals._

_And yet._

_John knows, on an even deeper level than conscious thought can reach, that he shouldn't be here. It's nothing he can quantify, or put into words, or understand. He just knows. He misses Sherlock, but it feels like he's missing a limb, like in the past few months they've just grown into the same person. It feels wrong; not melancholy or nostalgic, just _wrong.

One day, with Sherlock weighing on his mind more than usual, John sits down next to the Doctor in the open door of the TARDIS. They're floating in space, a quiet day, and their legs hang down into nothingness. John kicks his feet a little to make the Doctor smile, but there's no denying what he's here for, and the Doctor knows it.

"You want to go home," the Doctor says softly, not looking at John.

"Yes," John replies.

"All right." The Doctor stands and walks toward the console but doesn't make it quite that far. He grabs the handrail and leans over it, hanging his head. "He really loves you, you know," he says, almost too quietly for John to hear.

John snorts. "No. He'd be the same way with anyone if they paid him half a mind. He just needs to be someone's sun, to have someone to orbit him. Doesn't matter who."

The Doctor does not answer. Then he pushes himself off of the railing and walks decisively toward the console and punches several keys on the typewriter. Pulling levers and ringing bells, he gives John the ghost of a smile and tells him to hold on. John does.

_This is a very brief timeline of events for Sherlock Holmes after John disappears._

10:00 a.m., eight hours since he last saw John: _He wakes up late after playing for John. John is nowhere in the flat. Sherlock, stupidly (because he can and does make mistakes), assumes that John has gone to work. He will beat himself up for this for the rest of his life._

1:00 p.m., eleven hours since he last saw John: _He tries to text John for the first time. John does not answer in his usually punctual fashion, and Sherlock very quickly finds John's phone under the edge of his armchair._

1:15 p.m, eleven hours and fifteen minutes: _He calls the clinic. According to Sarah, John was supposed to work that day, hadn't shown up, and wouldn't turn on his phone._

11:18 p.m., eleven hours and eighteen minutes: _Sherlock begins his investigation._

Two days: _Sherlock starts to panic a little. He keeps it to himself._

One week: _Sherlock is panicked enough to rip his own hair out, which he does, in clumps._

Two and a half weeks: _He calls Mycroft._

One month: _Sherlock refuses, _refuses _to believe that John is dead, even though everyone is telling him so._

Two months: _The panic has dulled down to a simmering, burning ache. A memorial service is held for John. Sherlock stays home._

Four months: _Sherlock collapses after three straight days of no sleep and no food. He wakes up twenty minutes later and thinks dully, "If John is dead, his corpse is rotted by now." Immediately after this thought, Sherlock begins to cry for the first time since he was seven years old. He wraps his long bony arms around himself and rocks back and forth, sobbing aloud in the darkness for hours because he does not know how to stop._

Five months: _Sherlock takes his first shot of morphine in eight years, because anything is better than this._

Six months, four days, six hours, and thirty-two minutes: _John comes home._

_._

The now familiar jerk of a successful landing brings all sound to a halt, and John feels a hollow sort of ache in his chest as he realizes this is probably the last time he'll ever see this wonderful place. He places a hand on the middle column, which feels warm and alive, and tells her goodbye. She hums softly, and John lets himself think it's a goodbye from her.

When he turns to the Doctor, his throat is a little too tight and he can't make eye contact.

"I..." John clears his throat a bit, which does nothing to help. "I don't know how to thank you for this."

"Don't," the Doctor whispers. So they just walk outside together.

John is instantly struck by how cold it is. "Jesus, I thought it was May!" he exclaims to himself. Wrapping his arms around his middle, he turns back one last time to look at the Doctor, who is standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, watching him go as he's watched all of his friends go, and John can't help but trot back to give the lonely old man a hug.

"_John?_"

_Instantly, John is thrown into the deep darkness of his memories, hurled backward to a coldly lit poolhouse and suffocated by the heavy smell of chlorine. Wrapped up tight in Semtex and tiny under the green coat and so afraid and stiff and still. Stepping out, the metal door clanging shut behind him with finality, and Sherlock, oh Sherlock, shocked and frightened and betrayed and his voice had sounded like this, just a whisper like he could hardly push out the word, John's name standing in for "Why?" or "Please no" or "How could you?"_

The memory only lasts a second, but it leaves him momentarily blinded and breathless-until he feels two shaking hands grab his arms and there is Sherlock in front of him, haggard and emaciated, curls hanging limply in his wild grey eyes, which are wide and shocked. John devours every detail with slowly growing horror as he begins to understand what happened-it's freezing outside, the clouds are threatening what feels like snow, the For Sale sign in the window at Speedy's, Sherlock's drastic change in appearance and silent, vibrating panic.

"What's the date?" John asks, the horror starting to claw at his throat.

"Where have you been?" Ignoring the question completely, Sherlock tightens his grip on John's arms and shakes him a little. "You're not visibly disturbed by the fact that you've been gone, only that I asked, so they either brainwashed you or you don't remember what happened. Do you remember anything? Anything at all could be useful. Details, John, _details!_"

"_Sherlock._" John speaks low and quiet and dangerous. "What. Is. The date?"

"It's November bloody fourteenth," Sherlock snaps, his voice cracking a little. "You've been gone for six months, four days, six hours, and thirty-two minutes!"

_Oh, God._

A different kind of blindness takes over John's vision, tinging it red and violent, and he yanks himself away from Sherlock's too-tight grasp and advances on the Doctor, who has been hovering in front of the TARDIS. Neither of them bother saying anything; John has no words for betrayal like this, and the Doctor knows it would be wasted breath. So the Doctor closes his eyes as John hauls his arm back and punches the Doctor in the face, pulling some of the force out of it so he doesn't break the man's jaw. The Doctor's head snaps to the side.

"You promised," John hisses. He can't look at the man who showed him everything, who taught him the stars and how to _see _and accept and love.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor whispers. That's all. And instantly John has forgiven him, but that doesn't erase his anger.

"Come on, _Doctor_," John says darkly. "That's going to bruise if we don't ice it." And he stalks into his own flat for the first time in six months, and for once, the Doctor and Sherlock follow meekly along behind him.

Opening the door at the top of the stairs, John isn't sure quite what he was expecting, but it wasn't _this._

The living room is an absolute wreck: papers and blown up, grainy CCTV pictures with huge scrawling handwriting, newspaper clippings, several dozen maps, multicoloured string taut along the walls and sagging as it connects adjacent tack boards together. Books strewn across every surface, abused, pages torn out and bent, crumpled and thrown toward the kitchen, which John refuses to assess. Covering one wall, next to the spray painted smiley face are bullet holes the spell out, in big shaky letters: J-O-H-N-W-A-T-S

"One bullet for every day that I failed," Sherlock says. "I ran out of space before I ran out of days."

To distract himself, John grabs a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and tosses them to the Doctor. "A little worried, were you?" John scoffs, then winces at the sarcastic dismissal in his voice. Sherlock says nothing, and when John turns toward him, Sherlock looks even more wrecked than the flat.

"Bit not good," Sherlock croaks.

_Fuck._

"Hey," John says roughly, and takes Sherlock into his arms, holding him tight. Sherlock wraps his arms around John and buries his face in John's neck. "Look, I'm all right," John whispers, and fuck all if his own throat isn't a little raspy. "I'm safe, I'm home. I'm sorry."

"I couldn't find you," Sherlock whimpers, his voice high and breaking, and John is horrified to feel a warm wetness on his neck. He tightens his arms as though he can squeeze comfort and warmth into Sherlock's bones and glares over Sherlock's shoulder at the Doctor, who won't meet his gaze.

After a few minutes, John pulls away and grasps Sherlock's temples, digging his fingers softly into dark wild curls, slowly moving his thumbs back and forth over Sherlock's brow. He smiles fondly, and Sherlock just looks at him, like a starving man-like he is bottomless, like he will never get enough, his sharp eyes already forgetting the tears smearing his hollow cheeks.

"Where were you?" Sherlock asks simply.

Under normal circumstances, of course, John might have smirked at Sherlock's inability to deduce his whereabouts. However, "travelling the universe" doesn't exactly enter into a person's thought process, and although Sherlock was built to think outside the box, the places John has been sort of demolish the box altogether.

John sighs. "This is going to be much easier if you just see it for yourself. Doctor?"

"And yes, Mr. 'Rory Jones' who thinks he can just exist in our kitchen, I haven't forgotten about you," Sherlock growls, rounding on the Doctor. "The only reason I didn't shoot you on sight is because John willingly turned his back on you, which means he trusts you, for whatever reason, and I trust his judgement. So. Tell me who you are and what you did to _my friend_, and I might take you to Scotland Yard rather than leaving you to my brother."

"Sherlock-"

"Shut up, John." _This_ is the Sherlock that John knows,or a flash of him; standing at full height, crowding in on the Doctor's space, _in command again_. Sherlock makes himself a barrier between John and the Doctor.

The Doctor exhales, gathers his wits, looks Sherlock Holmes right in the eye, and gives his confession. "I'm a Time Lord from the extinct planet Gallifrey. I'm the last of my kind. I took John because he wanted to come, and because I was lonely, and we travelled the stars, didn't we, John? We saw the beginning and end of everything and so many beautiful things in between, and it was marvelous. And I'm sorry we were late, but I'm not sorry I took him."


	7. Chapter 7

**And again with the disclaimer.**

**Part 9: Shook The Bones Of Me**

Sherlock blinks. "What?"

And Sherlock's nonplussed look finishes John, and he's laughing behind his hands. Oh, _God_, he missed this man so much.

At Sherlock's glare, John gets a hold of himself and glances at the Doctor, silently asking permission. The Doctor nods once. "Come on," John says, gesturing for Sherlock to follow him once more. "I can show you."

"This is ludicrous," Sherlock mutters under his breath, but he walks so close to John that John knows he's bluffing, that he's frightened of what he might find, whether the Doctor is telling the truth or whether he's actually barking mad.

John pulls out the key he keeps tucked close to his chest around a thin chain and unlocks the TARDIS door, pushing it open, leading Sherlock inside.  
>That look of absolute wonder and shock on Sherlock's face does something to John; makes him warm and giddy, unable to stop smiling. No wonder the Doctor has never got tired of it. Sherlock can't seem to close his mouth as his eyes scan up, down, around, behind.<p>

"No," he rasps.

"Yes," John replies.

"According to the laws of nature, this is impossible."

"I think you mean 'improbable,'" John quips before he can stop himself, but Sherlock hardly notices. John feels a slight tugging on his jumper and looks down; Sherlock is holding his sleeve by the elbow, caught between two fingers, almost as though he doesn't quite know he's doing it. John smiles to himself and doesn't mention it.

"It's Time Lord science," the Doctor says from behind them. Sherlock gawps at him. "Before they were wiped out, they taught themselves how to manipulate physics. Space and time were already within their grasp and control, so it wasn't a hard leap. Ergo, time machine, although technically, as I had to keep telling John, it's a time _and space _machine."

"So," Sherlock forces out, "so, you went on your own then? He didn't force you?"

"No," John admits quietly. "He didn't force me. I went because I wanted to go. But he promised, you _promised_," he growls, rounding on the Doctor. "You said you could get me back in time, before anyone noticed, and you _didn't._ Why not?"

"Miscalculation," the Doctor mutters. "I told you, it happens sometimes."

"No," says Sherlock suddenly, peering at the Doctor with his old probing gaze. "No, you're lying. You did it on purpose, why? _Why_?"

"John," the Doctor says sharply. "Catch him."

"Wha-" John hasn't even finished the thought when Sherlock starts to sway a little, and John wraps an arm around him before his knees can buckle.

"When did you last eat?" John demands of the man now leaning heavily on his shoulder.

Sherlock makes a face. "Back to doctoring me, are you? Some things never change. Can't say I missed this particularly much." But he lets his head fall sideways and rests it gently in the hollow of John's temple, so John isn't too annoyed.

"I'll give you a choice," John says, a hint of amusement finding its way into his voice. "Because I'm a _nice _doctor. Sleep or eat. Which one first?"

"Oh, an ultimatum," Sherlock grins. "I do so love smashing ultimatums to bits."

"You're going to faint soon anyway, so one way or the other-"

"I do not _faint_," Sherlock interrupts disgustedly.

"Right, great big hamburger it is, then," John decides.

"I-I am tired, though," Sherlock sighs, and it's the most he's ever admitted. John leads him to the bedroom he slept in and tosses a couple of blankets over him before shutting off the light and closing the door.

.

Returning to the main control room and walking up to the Doctor without throwing yet another punch is one of the harder things John has had to do since they met.

"Sit down, John," he says quietly, and they both settle themselves crosslegged on the floor beside the main console. John faces him, staring him straight in the eyes.

"He was right, wasn't he?" John asks. "You did this on purpose. You _made _him suffer like that."

The Doctor hangs his head. "Rule number one," he whispers. "The Doctor lies."

"_Why_?"

"Because you said he just needed to be someone's sun," the Doctor says. "That isn't what he needs. He needs _you_, John, it is the most important thing in the world that you know it. And you wouldn't believe me if I told you, so I had to show you."

John frowns. "I don't understand."

The Doctor runs a hand through his hair, puffing out a breath. "Fifteen years ago," he says, almost inaudible so that John has to lean forward to hear him, "a little girl showed me a crack in her wall. I didn't know it at the time, but the crack was everywhere, every time. It erased things, and not just in the sense that they were gone forever. It erased their entire existence. People didn't remember them because the crack made it so they'd never been there. Near the end of it, you and Sherlock were taken. My friend and I were able to bring everything back, just as it was before... Except for you two."

The Doctor drags his eyes up to meet John's inquiring gaze. "You're a Fixed Pair," he says after a long pause, sighing. All traces of his bouncy happiness are gone as he looks away from John. The TARDIS's light gives the Doctor's face strange, hollow shadows that angle across his cheeks, like he's holding a torch to his chin, ready to tell ghost stories. The shadows expose the old man, and he looks unimaginably weary. John finally, fully believes the Doctor's claim of 1117 years, and he feels that foreign, inexplicable sadness that invaded his mind when the Doctor showed him who he was-like he's watched worlds burn.

"What's that?"

"Something very rare. Until recently, I didn't know that anything like this even _existed_. Basically, it means that no matter what changes Time goes through, you'll still happen. It's like a Fixed Point in Time, except not really like that at all. Time can be manipulated and changed and altered quite a lot, but you... You might not always happen at the original time but you _always _happen. The pair of you, before the cracks appeared, lived in late Victorian London."

"So..." John furrows his brow. "So. When you said it was the most important thing in the world..."

"I meant it," the Doctor confirms. "If you two don't meet, or if you don't believe he cares about you enough for you to stay... History goes into chaos."

"But you took me," John pointed out. "For six months."

"You always had the intention of going back," the Doctor reminds him. He cringes a little, as though bracing himself, and then seems to decide against saying anything. "I shouldn't have brought you along," he says finally, and drops his head again. "I was vain, and lonely, and playing with fire."

John sits silent, staring at the floor in front of him like it might give him answers, trying desperately to work through everything the Doctor has told him.

"How... How rare?"

"There are only two known in all of existence," the Doctor says.

John is absolutely floored. "So this is... This is just destiny we're talking about."

"English doesn't really have a word for it, but yes, that's the closest to it."

"God," John whispers.

"Call me the Doctor." John shoves his shoulder.

"Can I ask you something?"

The Doctor nods.

"Can we take Sherlock somewhere, just once? I want... I want him to see." John gestures helplessly, lost for words.

"Of course."

John smiles tiredly. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Get some rest," he says gently. They stand up together, two old men stretching their stiff limbs.

"Doctor," John says hesitantly, "You said there are only two Fixed Pairs in all of existence. Who is the other pair?"

The Doctor's eyes close involuntarily for a second, remembering old pain. "Amelia Pond and Rory Williams," he says, very softly. "I knew them. I ruined them."  
>John doesn't want to ask, but he has to know. "Do you ruin everyone you take?"<p>

The Doctor gives him the saddest expression; it is technically a smile, but there's so much anguish behind it that it seems to twist before John's eyes into a grimace of pain. "I wonder every day."

_Good job, wanker_, John growls at himself as he closes the distance between him and the Doctor and gives him a big hug.

Contrary to what John thinks will happen, he sleeps like a bloody rock that night.


	8. Chapter 8

**I do not claim any of these characters as my own.**

**Part 10: Honey, Understand**

"John? _John_!"

John jerks into a sitting position, gasping as his back cracks noisily. He's running before he's even entirely conscious, stumbling out into the long hallway, Sherlock's panicked shouts ringing in his ears. He trips around a corner and, like it's a bloody slapstick comedy, slams straight into Sherlock and falls flat on his back.

"Jesus, Sherlock, _what_?" John grunts irritatedly as he picks himself up.

Sherlock shakes his head. "I..." He sighs in frustration and grabs a chunk of hair, pulling his dark curls taut. "I didn't know where you were," he admits begrudgingly, his face flushing a little. An unfamiliar warmth spreads through John's chest, and he smiles.

Then he catches a glimpse of Sherlock's inner left arm; his dressing gown had slipped down one shoulder and almost off, leaving the crook of his elbow exposed, and it is marked with tiny black dots, some older, some possibly only days old. Sherlock catches John's frozen gaze and follows it.

"Oh."

"Yeah." John's voice is steely and cold. He clenches his fists at his sides, already feeling the fingers in his left hand beginning to tremble.

"John-"

"I don't want to hear it."

"I fail to see how what I choose to do in my spare time concerns you at all."

"Right, because I _want _to come home someday and find you dead of an overdose. That sounds like a cracking great day."

"I have no patience for melodramatics."

"And I have no patience for stupidity."

"You weren't _there_," Sherlock hisses suddenly. "You weren't there. I thought you were dead, so it didn't matter."

"Don't make your stupid choices my fault," John hisses right back. "I know I shouldn't have gone, all right? I've explained what happened _and _apologized for it."

"Well, _I haven't forgiven you._"

"Fine." Brushing past Sherlock's rigid form, John marches away to find the Doctor.

Halfway to the main control room, John deflates, the anger seeping out of his body, leaving him exhausted and sad. He finds the Doctor fiddling with the Zig Zag Plotter and sits in the captain's chair.

"Something wrong?" the Doctor asks, keeping his gaze locked on the console.

John shakes his head. "Sherlock is an idiot, that's all."

"Ahh, humanity." The Doctor quirks a grin at John, like he's looking at a particularly awe-inspiring wild animal. "So! Where to? Where do John Watson and Sherlock Holmes want to go?"

John thinks for a moment, then says slowly, "Let's go somewhere quiet."

"Quiet it is!" the Doctor shouts delightedly and picks up the microphone hooked to the intercom. "Attention all passengers, we are about to take off. Please hold onto something that is attached to the floor." John grins in spite of himself and grabs the railing as the TARDIS jerks away from the Earth.

A few moments later, after everything has slowed down and steadied out, Sherlock appears in the control room, looking slightly shaken but otherwise all right.

"Gentleman and gentleman," the Doctor says, playing grandiose, "the quietest corner of the universe." He opens the TARDIS's doors, and John and Sherlock stare out into the blackness.

They haven't landed, John notices. They're just floating in space, absolute pitch black sky in every direction, only one tiny star visible when John squints down. The Doctor turns most of the lights off inside the TARDIS, and even the grating sound ceases, leaving the three of them in silence, shadowed in the dark. John can feel the air corridor blowing gently at his calves, so he steps outside, and hearing Sherlock gasp makes him smirk a little bit. Nothing like shocking the mad genius Sherlock Holmes three times in two days. He looks back and stretches out his hand for Sherlock to take.

"Come on, it's safe," he promises. "It feels a little like standing on an air mattress, but more stable." Sherlock doesn't look that convinced, but he reaches out, grabs onto John's hand and steps out beside him anyway.

"I remember... You said something, after the pool..." A shudder goes through Sherlock, and John pauses to give him a moment. Sherlock grips his hand so tightly that he can feel his knuckles grinding together into dust. "You said it was so loud in your head sometimes, and I thought... I thought something like this might help."

_And this is exactly perfect, _Sherlock thinks with an inward sigh of relief_. The deepest darkness he's ever seen sucks all of the wild screaming thoughts and pain away and leaves nothing but peace and calm, bottomless silence and quiet. It feels a little like a reward, and he closes his eyes against the tears that are suddenly threatening, squeezing John's hand._

And then the dim TARDIS light starts to glow a violent red, and the cloister bell begins to sound, low and chilling, and everything goes to hell in a hand basket.

John just barely makes it back into the TARDIS before the doors snap shut, Sherlock an even closer shave; his dressing gown gets caught in the doors as it whips back, and he yanks it free with an almighty ripping noise. The TARDIS starts to shake and tip, and Sherlock and John grab the railing and hold on with both hands.

"What's going on?" John shouts at the Doctor over the incessant low clanging.

"Uh... Something!" the Doctor shouts back, scampering around the console, fiddling frantically with the buttons and knobs. "Something very not good!" A particularly violent jerk tosses the Doctor to the side, and he lands directly in front of the ancient television set that serves as his information screen. All John sees, of course, is various strange circles and curves, but the Doctor takes one glance at it and his jaw drops.

"That is impossible!" he exclaims, his voice cracking.

"I think you mean improbable," Sherlock reminds him, and no one pays attention.

"What is it and how do you stop it?" John demands.

The Doctor cranes his neck and meets John's eyes, and John sees true fear there for the first time since they met. "It's the Master," he says, nearly pleading. "I don't know how, but he's back."

**Part 11: This Is The Goal: To Get Into Your Soul**

They hang on until the TARDIS comes to a decidedly rocky landing, and John and Sherlock follow the Doctor's quick, purpose driven strides outside.

John almost stops short when he realizes where they are, but Sherlock pushes him forward with a hand on his back. "Wait, this is-"

"London, England, 1963," Sherlock mutters.

"How could you _possibly _know that?"

"I know what London looks like, so that covers the place. As for the date, that woman across the street is wearing a very specific style of hat that was only produced and in style from late 1962 through 1963, so it's statistically more likely that this is 1963."

"Yes, you're brilliant, now pipe down," the Doctor says impatiently in front of them. He's practically running, he's walking so fast, and he checks his sonic screwdriver over and over again as they hustle down alleys and side streets. John doesn't ask where they're going because he knows the Doctor won't answer him.

After speed walking for about two miles in zig zags, they arrive at a nondescript grey building and walk inside. It turns out to be a homeless shelter that is currently serving lunch. They each grab a bowl of soup and sit down around a tiny, grimy card table.

.

This is what it's like inside the Doctor's head right now:

_Panic panic panic oh God how did he do it this time how can he just keep coming back and back and back and back and this is not helping Doctor THINK it doesn't matter how he came back just what he's up to and why now God why now there has to be some sort of reason you're just not looking hard enough what does he want dammit Master what do you want from me I have nothing left-_

_Hello, Doctor._

_What do you want, Master?_

_To see you suffer._

John watches the Doctor with growing concern as he screws his eyes shut and ducks his head, rubbing his temples with his fingers. After a few moments, he opens his eyes and glances up at John.

"What's the Master?" John asks quietly so no one around them will listen.

The Doctor sighs and wrings out his fingers. "He's a Time Lord."

"But you said you were the last of-"

"I am. I _was_. I watched him die, and then he came back and I watched him die again. He should be time-locked in the war right now, but he's escaped. I'm not sure how or why."

"And... This isn't a good thing... Why?" John asks, confused.

"The Time Lords put a signal in his head that drove him mad. He loves destroying things almost as much as a child loves knocking over a Jenga tower. Do you remember Harold Saxon? That was the Master. He's dangerous, and he hates me."

"What war?" Sherlock asks suddenly.

"The Time War. The Last Great Time War." He says it with disgust running deep through his veins.

Out of nowhere, Sherlock's phone rings. He blinks, pulling it out of his pants pocket, but the Doctor grabs it before he can answer. He presses a button and holds the phone up to his ear, checking around to make sure no one is paying attention. No one is.

"Hello, Master," he half growls.

"Hello, Doctor," says the voice on the other line. It is deep and cartoonishly evil, spoken with a Southern English accent and obviously being fed through a voice distorter. "Having fun with your little pets?"

"What do you want?"

"Why do I have to _want _anything? Why can't I just have a little chat with my old friend?" The Doctor is silent, staring straight ahead, clearly not seeing anything. "No, actually, you're right," the Master giggles. "I just thought your friends should know what you did to me." And then his voice drops to a husky, frightening whisper. "I closed the Time Lock for you. I took the Time Lords back into oblivion for you, and you know what? It _hurt. _It was eternal, neverending, burning Hell, and I did it for you, and you _left me there_. So let me tell you what I am going to do. _I am going to burn you up like you left me to burn. You will die slowly, screaming and alone, and I will stand over you and laugh._ Do you understand me, _Doctor_?"

Very quickly, so quickly that John can't even be sure he's done it until it's over, the Doctor hangs up on the Master, flips Sherlock's phone over, sonics it, take the battery out, and hands it back to Sherlock, pocketing the battery. "He can't contact us on that phone again," the Doctor says in lieu of Sherlock's indignant expression. "Let's go. He already knows where we are."

They go back the way they came, and the Doctor flies the TARDIS out of 1963. When they land again, they are back in November 2011, one night after John's original return.

"What is this?" John demands once he and Sherlock are outside, rounding on the Doctor, who leans against the door frame of his TARDIS.

"This is me bringing you home," the Doctor says implacably. "Like I should have before."

"Why now?" John strides back to the man and stands close, eyes locked with the Doctor's. "Why now, when there's someone after you? You need someone, Doctor, remember, you told me that woman Donna said that to you. Why leave us here, now?"

"Because," the Doctor starts, and stops himself. Then he seems to make a decision and starts again. "Because of all the people who died during the Year That Never Was, because of Rose and Donna and Amelia and Rory and River and all the other people I couldn't save."

"What's the Year That Never Was?" John can't help but ask.

The Doctor smiles one of those not-smiles. "Ask Martha Jones about that."

"So this is it, then?" John asks softly. The Doctor nods, and John's throat goes unexpectedly tight. He tugs the taller man down into a hug and holds him there. "Take care of yourself, please," John begs as tears begin to sting his eyes. The Doctor squeezes him tight in reply. John doesn't want to let go.  
>He does let go eventually, and he feels the air displaced by the TARDIS's dematerialization blowing across his hair, lifting his dishwater fringe into a tangle. When he turns back to Sherlock, wiping at his eyes, Sherlock is giving him a very strange, probing look.<p>

"What?" John mutters, ducking his head away from Sherlock's gaze.

Sherlock shakes his curls sharply. "Nothing." He straightens up and shifts his dressing gown so it actually falls over both shoulders, like it's supposed to. Somehow, he suddenly looks slightly forbidding, even in striped pajama pants. "Come on, John. We've got work to do."

"What do you mean?"

Sherlock grins at him, and for a second, it's just like the old days. "This is the most interesting case I've had in a long time. Did you really think I was going to give it up that easily?"

"But what can we possibly do?"

"No bloody idea." Sherlock looks thrilled by the prospect. "But he did give us something to go on."

"And what's that?"

Sherlock's eyes start to glitter with ideas, and John is reminded forcefully of the day after they met; Sherlock jumping into the air with excitement at the thought of four serial suicides and a note. "We're going to find Martha Jones."

**A/N: The quote "It feels like a reward" comes from Wordstring's beautiful fic series The Paradox Series. There's another quote of hers in here somewhere as well, about being bottomless.**


	9. Chapter 9

**This is ridiculous, I AM NOT PUTTING A DISCLAIMER AT THE BEGINNING OF EVERY CHAPTER.**

**Part 12: I Do Know Why You Stayed Away**

Ten minutes later, Sherlock is dressed and ready, and both of them are hunched over John's laptop, searching every Martha Jones in the United Kingdom.

"This is ridiculous," John mutters under his breath as he scrolls through pages of google searches.

"Try searching 'Martha Jones Doctor' and see if anything comes up," Sherlock says, undeterred.

John types it in. "Oh, what's this... Article from some gossip rag in 2007... _A native Londoner, Martha Jones, who was studying to be a doctor, disappeared late last month from the hospital where she worked as an intern. She has returned to her family, safe and sound. Pictured here at a party with her parents and a mysterious, dapper stranger._" The photograph shows a beautiful, dark-skinned woman in a deep purple sleeveless dress, standing next to an older woman with short hair and tired eyes. A tall, slightly odd looking man hovers in the background in a suit and black bow tie. Something clicks together and falls into place in John's head, and he shoots forward, staring hard at the man in the background.

"That's him," he says, almost unaware that he's spoken out loud.

"Who?"

"The Doctor."

Sherlock's silence screams incredulity. "John, do you need your eyes checked?"

"No, shut up a second," he snaps. "He does a thing sometimes. His body changes, when he's about to die. It saves him, keeps him alive with the same memories and everything, but he's a different person. He said he's done it something like ten or eleven times. I remember, he showed me... images of himself, when he was younger. That's him, I'm sure of it."

"Then we need to talk to her," Sherlock decides. "She's probably a doctor by now, so it should be easy to find her."

After a few more minutes of searching, they find her: Martha Jones-Smith, a doctor working at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in North London. She has her own practice nearby, whose website includes an address and phone number. Sherlock calls and sets up an appointment with her; miraculously, she is working the next day and has a free hour at two.

As Sherlock hangs up, John catches himself yawning. It is nearly four in the morning, after all. "Here," he says, and hands Sherlock his laptop. "You do your research. You're far better at it than me. I'm going to watch some telly and go to bed." Sherlock takes his computer without a word and begins to type furiously, the screen illuminating his face. _He really is far too thin_, John thinks.

He turns on the telly and switches it to the History Channel. There's some documentary about Egypt playing, and John sags against the couch, sighing. He's worried about the Doctor and hopes that Martha Jones can answer some questions, but he's also grateful to be home, sitting in front of the telly, with his best friend typing on John's computer just a few feet away on the same couch. It feels more right, more comfortable, and before he can really finish that thought he's fallen asleep.

.

"John! John, wake up!"

"What," he mumbles, squeezing his eyes closed. "What, Sherlock?"

"Wake _up_, you lazy sod! It's past noon and we have an appointment in one hour. We need to get going!"

"We...?" John finally cracks one eye open and sees that there is a familiar orange blanket lying over him that he swears he didn't put there. "Did you cover me up with a blanket?" he asks, still nearly incoherent with sleep.

Sherlock gives him a look that very clearly says "What could that possibly matter?" and throws the orange blanket off of John, tossing it into a far corner of the room.

"Hey!"

"What?" Sherlock grins mischievously. "You didn't think you could get out of coming with me, did you?" John hurls a pillow at him, which smacks him square in the face. "Oi!" John giggles, rubbing his hands over his face, and is almost immediately whacked in the ear by the same pillow.

"Ow!"

"Did that wake you up?"

"No."

"Good. Go get dressed. We've got things to do, John, things to _do_!" Just then the kettle starts to whistle, and Sherlock whirls out of the living room and into the kitchen to take it off of the stove.

"Tea?" John says incredulously. "Since when do you make tea?"

"Since you weren't here to make it for me," Sherlock responds airily. John tenses, but nothing follows it, and Sherlock's tone hadn't been accusatory, just factual and practical.

"I bet it's ghastly," John teases.

John can almost hear Sherlock rolling his eyes from the living room. "Just because you've rarely seen me do something does not mean I don't know how to do them," Sherlock chides. "For example, I can cook up a storm, but you've never seen me do it."

"I don't believe it."

"Suit yourself."

Sherlock brings John a cup of tea in his favourite mug, one that Molly had made especially for him. It is dark green and has two blue stripes, one at the top and one at the bottom. In the middle is printed the words "Doctors make the greatest lovers." (He's not sure quite what she meant by that, but he loves it all the same.) John tastes the tea, and his eyes widen immediately. "This is actually really good," he admits. "And made how I like it, too. How did you-"  
>"John, <em>really<em>," Sherlock drawls, rolling his eyes again. "How can I _not _know how my _flatmate _likes his tea?"

John shrugs and just drinks the tea. _Best not look a gift horse in the mouth, or whatever the phrase is_, he thinks. _What a ridiculous saying_.

Sherlock practically bounces up and down in anticipation as John takes his time finishing off his breakfast. John takes a bit of enjoyment in watching Sherlock discomfort and impatience, but in all honesty, John himself is feeling a bit nervous and jumpy at this point as well. They're going to meet Martha Jones in just a little less than an hour, a woman who had disappeared, just like John, who had travelled with the Doctor, albeit a different version of the Doctor. Not that that particularly mattered. John couldn't want to talk to her, but he felt a little apprehensive. What if the Doctor had been right? What if he actually _did _ruin everyone he touched, like John had wondered? What if Martha was jaded, or angry, or refused to speak to them at all?

As it turns out, none of these fears hold any ground. Martha Jones welcomes them into her office with a beautiful smile and firm handshake.

"What can I do for you?" she asks, sitting down behind her desk.

Sherlock sits forward, his hands in prayer formation under his chin. "We have a mutual acquaintance, Mrs. Jones-Smith."

"Do we?"

John sits forward as well, clearing his throat. Sherlock's interrogation methods might work well on criminals, but this is an informal meeting, and Martha Jones-Smith isn't a criminal-no need to get carried away. "Yes," he says, and Mrs. Jones-Smith's head swivels to him, her eyes widening slightly. "We understand you've met the Doctor."

Mrs. Jones-Smith takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Yes," she says finally. "Yes, I have. How is he?"

John looks at Sherlock, who gazes back icily and tilts his head as if to say, _You're the one who spent six months with him_. John sighs inwardly. _He hasn't forgiven me yet,_ John thinks, sagging. _This isn't over, not by a long shot._ "Um, actually, that's what we came to talk to you about. He's in a bit of trouble, and he mentioned your name, and, well..."

"Of course," Martha sits up straight in her chair, professional, business-like, no nonsense allowed. "How can I help?"

"He says... Well, we heard him as well, he called us, but the Doctor says that the Master is back."

Her expression does not change, but her hands grip her chair tighter than is strictly necessary for one who is sitting down. "That's not possible. I watched him die."

"He called us," John says. "On Sherlock's phone. He wants the Doctor dead. What did he say exactly, Sherlock?"

"'I am going to burn you up like you left me to burn,'" Sherlock intones. "'You will die slowly, screaming and alone, and I will stand over you and laugh.'"

Martha stares at him, obviously creeped out. "That sounds like him," she says quietly. "Something's off about it, though. I can't figure out what."

"He said to ask you about the Year That Never Was," John remembers suddenly.

And _that_ makes Martha freeze like a deer in headlights, and John thinks for one panicked second that he's said something very, very wrong, that they've lost her completely before they'd even had ten minutes with her, that he's ruined everything, everything, everything.

And then she closes her eyes, forcing herself to relax. "Yes," she breathes. "Just give me a moment."

The room is silent for a few seconds, and when she opens her dark eyes, there is something haunted in them. That feeling of despair that John feels sometimes, that sense that he's watched worlds burn-it's in every premature line on Martha's face, in her eyelashes and the curve of her mouth and the shadows of her cheeks. This woman has seen Death and can't forget it, won't let herself forget it; it taught her something too important to forget.

"Do you remember," she begins, her voice very quiet, "the moment Harold Saxon was shot?"

"Of course," John says, but Sherlock shakes his head. Martha gives him a strange look but chooses to continue and ignore it.

"It's a bit difficult to explain, but that's not exactly what happened. In reality, the Master wasn't shot until a year after his term began. In reality... He'd controlled Britain through a low grade psychic link into the Archangel Network. He brought in... It's not important you know who, just that he needed the TARDIS to sustain a paradox for them to come. He wiped out a tenth of the world's population on his second day. Japan burned. No one survived there, except me." She says it without pride. "The Doctor was captured and tortured by the Master, but he sent me away to tell his story to everyone I could find." She smiles sadly at them. "I remember you both. I remember everyone I spoke to. Sometimes I see them on the street, sometimes the ones I watched die, and it's like seeing ghosts."

"Why don't we remember any of this?" Sherlock demands. "How is it possible that only you remember it?"

"It's not just me," she says. "Let me finish. I travelled the world for a year on my own and told his story. I did what he said and told everyone that a year from the Master's first day, at a specific time, they were to think as hard as they could, just one word: Doctor."

"The Archangel Network," Sherlock breathes. "Brilliant."

Martha nods. "Yes. He used the year he had to integrate his own mind into the network. And it worked. Captain Jack destroyed the paradox machine, which reversed time, and it took that entire year away, and no one remembers it except those of us who were on the ship at the time."

"What about the Master?" John asks.

"His wife, Lucy, shot him."

"But he was a Time Lord," John points out. "Surely a bullet wouldn't kill him for good."

"No." Martha rests her temple in her hand. She looks so tired, so worn. "He refused to regenerate. Because he knew how much it would hurt the Doctor. That's the kind of man he is. When it comes down to it, he'd rather have the Doctor alive and suffering than have his own life." She sits up again, suddenly alert. "Which is why I don't understand what he meant. I don't believe he wants the Doctor dead. In agony, sure."

"Burning," Sherlock murmurs. That _oh I've got it _look begins to dawn on his face.

And then, John gets it.

_Kill you? No, don't be obvious. I mean, I'm gonna kill you anyway, someday. But I'm saving that for something special, no no no no no. If you don't stop prying... I will burn you. I will burn the _heart _out of you._

"Oh, _God_."

"He was being metaphorical," Sherlock practically shouts, tipping over his chair as he runs out of the room.

"Thank you, Mrs. Jones, thank you," John says hurriedly, gathering his things.

"It's Martha." She doesn't look much fazed by Sherlock's antics, but then, John supposes, probably there's very little that phases her anymore. "And please, don't hesitate to call. I'd like to know if he's all right."

"Of course," John promises, and dashes off after Sherlock.

He's already on his phone, actually calling Mycroft. "I need everything you can tell me about Moriarty, _everything_, _all _of it, _right _now!" Apparently Mycroft starts talking, because Sherlock actually starts listening, his entire existence completely focused on his brother's voice. John hails a cab, and they're almost home before Sherlock says tersely, "Thank you" and hangs up. John wants very badly to ask, but Sherlock has that same look on his face as he always does right before he screams at everyone in the general vicinity to shut up and stop breathing so he can think. So John doesn't ask.

Turns out he doesn't have to anyway. Because as the cab pulls away, there's a very familiar _vworp vworp vworp _and the TARDIS materializes right next to them and spits out the Doctor, who is partially on fire.


	10. Chapter 10

**Part 13: It's You And There's No Other**

John goes into action mode immediately, ripping off his coat and tossing it over the Doctor's flaming leg. He holds his coat down on the Doctor's leg until the fire is completely out.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he demands of the Doctor. "Did it burn through your trousers?"

"No," the Doctor gasps, out of breath. "On both counts." John pushes his trouser leg up anyway, just to make sure; his skins looks fine, not red or blistered at all. He lets himself breath a small sigh of relief, then actually looks at the Doctor's face. He's absolutely _filthy_, and he looks as though he hasn't slept in about a hundred years.

"What the hell are you doing here?" John asks. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but..."

"Yeah." The Doctor's eyes close, and his head droops. "Remember Rule One."

"Okay, get up," John grunts, and he hauls the Doctor into a standing position. "We're going inside, you're going to take a bloody _shower_, and then we'll talk."  
>The Doctor is clearly too tired to protest, so they take him inside and show him the bathroom. John makes tea because that's what John does in a crisis, or in the morning, or the evening, or any time, really. Sherlock stretches himself out on the couch, posing his hands pressed together, his fingers touching the underside of his chin. John decides again to let him be. Sherlock would speak when he felt like it and not before.<p>

Twenty minutes later, the Doctor steps out of the bathroom and sits down in the leather chair, looking like a stiff old man who had just gotten out of bed.

"What happened?" John asks simply.

The Doctor picks at a loose thread on his jacket. "I was right. The Master's back. He used the signal in his head to get back to Earth. From what I could gather, only the people close to him know his as Moriarty. He's using the persona of M to work on a machine called the Decatur Complex. It's a machine that they used to sell on the Black Market, before the War. All of them were destroyed within the first battle of the War. They're designed specifically to erase planets from existence. Usually smaller ones than Earth, but they can be altered to erase any planet. I'll give you three guesses as to which one he's planning on erasing, and the first two don't count." (Something about this niggles away at John's brain; there's something he's missing, but he doesn't know what it is or if it's even important, so he leaves it alone.)

"Earth," John breathes. "But why?"

"Weren't you listening to Mrs. Jones-Smith?" Sherlock intones suddenly from the couch. "He wants the Doctor to suffer. To be in agony."

Something clicks in John's head, far back when he and the Doctor, then calling himself Rory Jones, first got to know each other.

_"People are always interesting. That's why they're my favourite."_

John remembers that smile that wasn't a smile, the way his expression shifted into something so sad and old and loving.

"How do we stop it?" John asks, leaning forward to listen, elbows on his knees. "What can we do?"

"Actually," the Doctor says, "could I have a cup of tea?"

"Oh, of course, I completely forgot." The tea he made when they first got home is too cool to be good anymore, so he decides to just make another pot. But when he turns around not two minutes later, he hears the door shut, and the Doctor is nowhere in sight.

"He's gone," Sherlock says, as though he's telling John that "It's raining" or "The tea is ready." Like it doesn't matter.

John doesn't waste his time smacking Sherlock in the face like he wants to; instead he moves faster than he's moved in a very long time, possibly since he won the 100 meter dash that his unit held years ago, a lifetime and a half ago. He bursts out the front door just as the Doctor is turning the key to open the TARDIS door.

"Doctor, no!" John shouts and runs up to the man, who stops moving and rests his head on the smooth blue wood of the TARDIS. "Please, Doctor," John begs. "You can't do this again. You can't just leave me here _again_, with no explanation. Why would you come back while the Master's out there and then leave, Doctor?"

Finally, he turns to face John, and John is taken aback by the expression in his eyes. They aren't sad or tired; they're _burning_, in anguish. And John doesn't need a spoken answer; he can see the loneliness in the Doctor's eyes, the _goodbye _that he is sending out with every move and tilt of his head and everything that he is not saying.

And John doesn't accept it.

"No."

John actually stamps his foot, which he hasn't done since he was around six years old.

"You're not leaving again. Please, Doctor," he steps forward, now so close to the man that he has to crane his neck to meet his eyes. "Please, let me come with you. Let me help."

The Doctor sighs, and his eyes drift closed. "Why do you have to be so human?" he whispers.

John doesn't have an answer for that, which is all right because at that moment, Sherlock comes sprinting outside, barefoot in the cold.

"So, when do we leave?" he says in his usual _I'm just going to assume I'm invited so we can get on without the nonsense _tone.

"You are not coming," John says firmly.

"Then you are not going," Sherlock says, just as firmly, confident and in control.

"Sherlock, if this is Moriarty-"

"It is, there's no _if _about it, John."

"Fine. He wants your head, Sherlock, on a platter. If you come, you'll be practically giving it to him."

"I think you're underestimating me."

"I don't-"

"No, John," Sherlock says, his voice quiet and calm. His eyes are clear and perfectly sane. "You don't understand. I do not need to be protected. Do not try to keep me locked away at home, because it will not work. And if I'm not there, I am going to be right in the middle of it."

"I just need to say," the Doctor interrupts, "that if either of you die, it's on your heads."

"Does that mean we're coming?" John asks hopefully.

The Doctor grins. "To Moscow we go!" he exclaims, and they pile into the TARDIS and hang on for dear life.

After the TARDIS settles a little bit, Sherlock goes to stand by the Doctor. "One thing I don't understand about this, Doctor, is why," he muses, frowning. "Martha said that the Master became Prime Minister to carry out his plans four years ago. The Moriarty persona is the opposite of that. Underground, behind the scenes. Slow. He's taking his time."

The Doctor gives Sherlock a crooked smile. "Maybe he remembers how well his big, grand, obvious plans _don't work_," the Doctor smirks.

After a few moments of turbulence and something beyond turbulence that can only be defined as _bone jarringly rocky_, the Doctor lands the TARDIS, presumably in Moscow.

Unsurprisingly, Moscow is freezing in November.

Sherlock decides, very quickly, that they need to find somewhere warm to plan a little. "I'm going to ask someone where we can find a bar."

"Okay." When John realizes what is about to happen, he is too late. "Wait, Sherlock, no-"

Sherlock has already stopped someone on the sidewalk, a vaguely cheerful looking man in a suit and winter coat. "Где мы можем найти бар?" he asks, very politely.

The man's small smile fades into a confused frown. "Sorry?" he says, in perfect English. "What was that?"

"Uh..." Sherlock's eyebrows furrow together, and John has to hide his mouth behind his hand so no one will see him laughing. "Where can we find a bar?"

"Oh," the man says, his face clearing. "One right down that street and to the right, just a block down."

"Thank you."

The man walks away, and John takes his hand away, still giggling a little.

"TARDIS translation circuits," the Doctor says, hiding his own smile. "You're actually speaking Russian now."

"Ah."

Once they find the bar, they immediately start to plan.

"The Master has surrounded the eighteenth floor of an office building downtown with a perception filter so that no one except those he wants can enter it," the Doctor explains in a low voice.

"How do we get in?" John asks.

"These."

The Doctor pulls out three TARDIS keys, tarnished, ancient silver, all hooked onto long circles of thin rope. "I used this to get around when he was Prime Minister. He'll still be able to see us, but we'll be able to see the eighteenth floor." He hands one to Sherlock and one to John, and together, the three of them lay the rope around their necks.

"Something's been bothering me," John says, suddenly remembering what's been niggling at his brain. "What... I guess the question is... How do building this machine and messing around in crime connect with each other?"

"He's using the Dear Jim crimes," Sherlock says, staring hard at the Doctor as if he could spin answers out of thin air. "Isn't he? As payment, they give him the part he needs, and he and his minions commit the crimes."

The Doctor nods. "Yes. The method is much more insidious this time, more _elegant_, as he might say. He's got minions to do anything he doesn't feel like doing, and he gets to orchestrate hundreds of criminal and terrorist acts while sitting back in a comfy chair and having his machine handed to him. He's infusing fear into England, into the world, little by little, so you don't notice it until you realize you take a longer route home from work because there aren't enough streetlamps on your shortcut street, or you start to lock your doors before the sun goes down. It's all in the details."

"Have you got a plan?" John asks.

"Well of course I do, don't be daft, John," the Doctor says indignantly. "I've _always _got a plan. Rule Number Thirty Eight is _The Doctor Has Always Got A Plan._"

"Well, what is it?"

"The plan is... This!"

And the Doctor flourishes something (well, as much as you can flourish something that looks like a Bop It game while trying not to attract too much attention to yourself in a Russian bar) and sets it in the middle of the table.

"And what is that?" John's voice is flat, and slightly annoyed. Living with two mad geniuses with brains far above everyone else in two separate flats had been enough; together, now, John is beginning to see how unbearable it would be to live with both of them together.

"That," the Doctor says with unnecessary drama, "is a Decatur Decomplexor."

John narrows his eyes. "You just made that up, didn't you."

"Well." The Doctor straightens his bow tie. "I had to have a name for it, didn't I? It's perfect, says its function all right there in the title!"

"What do we do with it to make it function?" Sherlock murmurs.

"First," the Doctor says, "You and John will need to evacuate everyone in the building, just to be safe. Here." He digs out the psychic paper and hands it to Sherlock. "Use this to get past anyone in your way."

Sherlock frowns at it, turns it over. "What is it?"

"Psychic paper," John answers. "Tells the viewer anything you want it to say."

"I don't see anything," Sherlock says, still frowning.

_Aaaand another slam in the balls for my intellect, _John thinks despairingly, but then, of course, he shakes it off. He's gotten quite good at it, living with both Sherlock and the Doctor lately.

"They'll see it," the Doctor assures Sherlock. "Anyhow. You evacuate everyone while I go up to the eighteenth floor and stick this thing right into the heart of the machine, set the timer, and then _whoosh_! Implosion. It has a weakness there, right at the heart, as all beautiful destructive machines do."

John chances a glance at Sherlock, who is staring at him like he holds the secrets of the universe and won't give them away.

"What if Mor-the Master catches you?"

The Doctor's mouth is technically smiling, but it's a grim, hard smile, the coldest he's ever seen from this man, who is becoming more and more alien as John watches. "I'm not the man I was then," he says, so quietly that John has to strain to hear him. "I forgave him so easily. I had so much mercy. I'm not sure if I'll be able to forgive him again. But, either way, I'll be fine. I promise."

They fly the TARDIS to the office building where the Master has laid out his plan, and the Doctor goes over their plan out loud with them, and John goes over his own personal plan in his head because _Rule Number One: The Doctor Lies._

John finds that his hands are perfectly still, his pulse rate normal. This is the sort of situation for which he was born.


	11. Chapter 11

**Part 14: I'm A Toddler With A Complex Toy**

_The Doctor always prepares himself for every eventuality. Rule Thirty Eight wasn't a lie: he always has a plan._

_It's just that, sometimes, the only eventuality that he can see involves death._

_He's always been at peace with that._

_This time is no exception._

_As the Doctor, Sherlock Holmes, and John Watson walk calmly toward the office building where the Master is creating his machine, cloaked by the TARDIS key perception filters, the Doctor says his silent goodbyes. They stop near the front door._

_"I've got to make a call," he says. "I'll meet you right here in fifteen minutes. If I'm not here, just go back to the TARDIS and wait there." John gives him a long look, but eventually he just nods sharply and follows Sherlock inside. The Doctor digs out an old cell phone, sonics it, and sends out a very important text message, then pats his jacket down for the Decatur Decomplexor._

_He doesn't have it._

_The one eventuality he wasn't prepared for._

_"Oh, Sherlock, you idiot!" he sighs, and runs off to catch them._

_._

People running, walking, yelling to each other: the result of a fire alarm. Sherlock thought it was more efficient; as usual, he was right.

John grips the Decomplexor tight in his pocket, because he has not lived with Sherlock Holmes for five months for nothing.

Sherlock's eyes gleam when John shows it to him, almost as if to say, _That's my boy_!

"He's planning to take himself out with the Master," John explains, his face hard set and determined. "I can't let him do that."

Sherlock goes a little soft around the edges and simply nods, promising, silently, as John has promised him so many times before, over and over, to follow him.

The eighteenth floor, rather than being a floor of offices and hallways, looks like a low ceiling-ed warehouse, and it is deserted, just like all of the other floors. It's eerie, but John does not shudder.

For all of the Master's hidden, sneaky underworld crime dealing, the machine stands out in obvious relief, right in the middle of the room.

John steps forward and examines the structure: tall, nearly touching the ceiling, and strangely shaped-like a shrubbery cut out of metal in the vague shape of a tree. Metal, twisted together with plastic and multicoloured wire and some thin, gold thread is twined through everything, turning and knotting things together, and John can't identify it; it's probably alien and stronger than it looks.

The "heart" of the machine isn't hard to find either.

John holds the Decomplexor in both hands, examining it closely. It is a dull gold colour and has a globe shaped center knobs about the size of John's palm, with two small columns sticking out, just slightly thicker than John's thumb, about twenty centimeters long each. One column displays a small clock with a button for the timer.

The Decomplexor fits perfectly into the heart of the machine.

"John."

Sherlock's voice right by his ear, urgent.

"You've tripped the alarm."

"How do you-"

"Move quickly."

He pushes the timer button so the clock reads 5:00 and begins to count down.

A sudden smashing brilliant pain at the back of John's head and he goes down, not quite unconscious but definitely concussed. His vision vibrates, and as he pushes himself up onto his hands and knees, there is an even louder crash and a heavy thump. John looks around; Sherlock is standing imperially over a very large body, which is dressed in a guard's uniform.

Sherlock's eyes shift to John, and he kneels down next to him, checking him over. "All right?" he murmurs, gently touching the brand new lump on the back of John's head.

John nods, and then decides that nodding is a bad idea.

"Let's get out of here."

"Oh, hello," sings a high, soft, lilting Irish voice. John's blood runs cold.

"Sherlock Holmes... Too interesting for Time Lords to resist. And of course, can't be without his pet. Johnny boy, how are you?"

"Master."

"Oh, you know my name!" He grins. "I didn't think he'd tell another human after the fiasco with Miss Martha Jones."

"She beat you." Sherlock's voice is calm, and he shields John with his body. "She was smarter than you."

"It doesn't matter." He shrugs, tilting his head to one side. "New me, new rules. And my new rules say that a big villain speech is both boring and counterproductive to my goals. So, goodbye." He pulls out a silver and yellow version of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and points it at Sherlock first.

"I don't think you want to do that," intones a quiet voice from behind the Master.

A flicker of just about every emotion imaginable-fear, rage, desperation, happiness, despair-slithers across the Master's face when he hears the Doctor's voice. "Doctor," he says; the word is strangled, like it became twisted and old on the way out. Then he straightens and clears his throat. "It's like a little party here, isn't it?" he exclaims cheerfully.

The Doctor does not answer, just looks at him, his hands clasped behind his back. They have a small conversation with their eyes which neither John nor Sherlock can begin to understand.

"Oh, I see," the Master says, grinning, serpent like once again. "You're going to offer me what you offered last time, aren't you? To be your companion, your_ slave._"

"No," the Doctor answers, dropping his eyes, and the Master looks a little taken aback. "That was arrogant of me. A Time Lord can't be caged. I should have known that." He looks up again, and his gaze intensifies. "I am so old now. I used to have so much mercy. That's what I said when I was 903. I didn't know, then. I didn't know that I had so much left." He's rocking back and forth on his heels. "You'll never change. You'll always be mad."

"But you'd be so lonely," the Master whispers, and for that second, it looks like he actually cares. And maybe he does.

The Doctor swallows but does not answer. Then the Master shrugs. "Oh well. You'll be erased from existence in a few minutes anyway, along with your entire precious human race."

"Not if I know my friends."

"Sorry?"

"If I've calculated correctly from the time when my pocket was picked, _Sherlock_, this building is going to implode in approximately one minute and forty-nine seconds. Give or take forty-seven of those seconds."

"Thanks, that one was me," John grunts, raising his hand. The Master's eyes widen; he looks frozen, shuddering slightly, a deer caught in very bright headlights.

The Doctor's voice becomes urgent. "It's time enough to escape, and if you don't the implosion will kill you, no regenerations. But it's going to have to be your choice this time. You were right; I didn't know you as well as I thought I did, when you were Prime Minister. But that doesn't matter now. It has to be you."

Then the Doctor rushes over to John and Sherlock's sides, tips his head back, and shouts, "RIVER SONG!"

Instantly, a woman with the frizziest, curliest hair John has ever seen and the cheekiest smile in the universe appears in a flash of blue light. "Hold onto this, boys!" she demands, sticking out her wrist, which is wrapped in a thick black band. They grab her wrist, and she slams her hand down on top of it, and the next instant, they are sitting on the TARDIS floor.

.

_There's a golden globe in the heart of his Decatur Complex, and the Master cannot bring himself to care._

_He is mad, and he does have the drums in his head, but he knows himself better than anyone, and he knew all along he would never be able to kill the Doctor, or the human race. Any pain of the Doctor's is a pain of his, he knows that._

_He rakes his eyes over his creation, his beautiful destroyer made from scratch, catching and remembering every piece, every crime he committed to get it, winding the gold thread through it so lovingly and painstakingly slow. He slides his finger down one shining metal branch, memorizing. His beautiful disaster._

_The globe's timer reads :20 seconds. The Master closes his eyes and waits._

_._

The Doctor and River are bantering on about something, John can't work out what, and it doesn't really matter to him anyway. He feels the sudden urge to lie down, so that's exactly what he does.

"John?"

Grudgingly, he opens his eyes. Sherlock is leaning over him, his face frozen in fear.

"I'm fine."

Sherlock shakes himself. "Of course you are," he mutters. "Just a concussion, most likely. Be fine in a few days. Good. Good." And then he stands up and walks away. John keeps his eyes closed and tries to stay awake.

.

_The Doctor looks over to Sherlock, who is shaking. Sherlock Holmes the Unshakeable, the Logical, the Rational, the Ruthless, shivering at the thought of his friend being hurt. He sends River off to make tea and saunters up beside Sherlock, who does not look at him._

_"All right?"_

_"Yes."_

_The Doctor nudges his arm gently. "He'll be fine."_

_"I know that," Sherlock snaps, high strung, tense._

_The Doctor moves to whisper in Sherlock's ear. "Hug him." Then he leaves Sherlock there, swaggering off toward the kitchen._

_Halfway there, he feels his hearts wrench sideways, and he stops short, struggling for breath, his hands scrabbling at his chest. It only lasts for a few moments, but those moments leave him weak and gasping, tears gathering in his eyes. That kind of pain can only mean one thing._

_He straightens his back and wipes his tears and walks toward River with heavy hearts._

_._

After dozing off for a split second, John decides that sitting up would probably be a better idea. He uses his elbows to shove himself up against the railing, moaning and groaning and grunting, but he does it, finally. He forces his eyes open-and then there is Sherlock, suddenly kneeling next to him, and then there are scrawny arms around him and his mouth opens but no sound comes out. He can feel Sherlock shaking, full body shudders, making his breathing uneven. And John raises his arms and wraps them around Sherlock, closing his eyes.

There are no words that need saying. Sherlock buries his head in John's shoulder for a few moments, and then pulls away, swiping at his eyes, and John maybe has to clear his throat a little bit to make it work again, but that's all right.

"So," says a woman's voice, smooth, curious, and dare John think it, _sexy_, "You're the famous Sherlock Holmes and John Watson." John looks up, and the woman called River Song is standing in front of them, her hands on her hips, grinning a crooked, beautiful grin. "Have I got the planet for _you_."


	12. Chapter 12

**Epilogue: Live A Life Less Ordinary With Me**

"I want to go back."

Sherlock is sulking. He is decidedly good at sulking, particularly in a very loud and obnoxious way, even when he isn't actually making any noise.

_River had taken them to a planet entirely made of puzzles, all kinds of puzzles, and oh, Sherlock had had a ball. John just sat and watched, quietly adoring the man, watching him shine, a small smile of pride and love tugging at the corners of his mouth._

"We can't, Sherlock. You solved the whole planet. There's nothing else to do."

"Well, actually," the Doctor pipes up, "no one's ever solved the whole planet before, but I've heard a legend that if someone ever does, after they leave, the planet rescrambles itself, moves itself, and leaves a clue behind for the next person to come back."

Sherlock's eyes widen.

"No." John's voice is firm.

Sherlock is _very _good at sulking.

.

They drop River off at her Archaeology class. She kisses the Doctor goodbye, and he seems sad to see her go. "Who is that, Doctor?" John asks once they take off again.

"That is my wife," the Doctor says quite proudly. John decides not to ask.

When they stumble out of the TARDIS, they are greeted by the sight of Baker Street at dusk, covered in a light dusting of snow, just enough to make everything glitter a little bit. Sherlock shakes the Doctor's hand.

"I assume this is goodbye."

"Yes."

"Thank you for everything, Doctor."

The Doctor just nods, and Sherlock drops his hand and walks toward his flat. John stays with the Doctor for a moment, watching the snow fall, flake by tiny flake.

"Will you tell him?" the Doctor asks.

"What, that it's Destiny? Hell, no!" John snorts. "He'd laugh me down to Parliament."

The Doctor grins as well. "I suppose you're right."

"Doctor."

"Yes?"

"Did you know you saved me, when I was in Afghanistan?"

"Did I?"

"Yes." John turns to face him fully. "I couldn't remember for the longest time where I'd heard the TARDIS before, but I remembered today. You were there, when I was dying. It was so hot, I remember. I was fading, giving up. And then you just walked up, in the middle of gunfire, not even noticing anything. And you came up to me and you told me it wasn't my day to die." John meets his eyes and holds the gaze. "That's why I'm here. I would have given up, but you saved me, before any of this happened. And I never remembered before to thank you, but I'm thanking you now. I'm so glad you did."

And he reaches up and hugs the Doctor, tight and strong, and the Doctor hugs him back. "Look after yourself," John whispers. The Doctor doesn't answer.

They pull away. The Doctor gives John a parting salute, which, of course, John returns.

John turns to go. Stops in the middle of Baker Street, struck with the lightning of a sudden, brilliant idea.

"Wait! Stop, wait!"

The TARDIS door reopens, and the Doctor's face pokes out, slightly annoyed. "Now that was such a nice goodbye, and you had to go and ruin it, didn't you?" he complains.

"There's someone I think you should meet," John says, slightly breathless, his eyes bright with hope. He gives the Doctor the address for St. Barts, and off they go. John leads him to the morgue, where Molly Hooper is just snapping her gloves on.

"Molly," John says, and she drops the scalpel she was carrying.

"Oh, my God, _John_! You're alive!" She rushes at him, squealing, and practically bowls him over with the force of her hug.

"Yes," John grunts, and pulls her gently off of him.

"Where have you been?" she demands, grabbing his face. "Sherlock's been worried _sick_!"

"I know, Molly, he's fine, he knows," John assures her. "I went travelling with this man, got a little carried away."

"What do you mean?"

"Hi!" The Doctor steps forward, holding out his hand for Molly to shake. She does, tentatively smiling at him. "I'm the Doctor. What do you think about time travel?"

.

_John leaves them there, chattering away at each other, and takes a cab home to Sherlock, home to his Destiny, smiling all the way._


End file.
